Memoirs of the reign of George the second, from the accession to the death of Queen Caroline

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GIVEN BY HELEN F. BRADFORD

MAY 24, 1942

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7

MEMOIRS

THE REIGN OF « » » *? * ^ ^ ^

GEORGE THE SECOND,

FKOM

HIS ACCESSION TO THE DEATH

OF

QUEEN CAROLINE.

BY JOHN, LORD HERVEY.

EDITED,

FBOH THE ORIGINAL MANUSCBIPT AT ICKWOBTH,
BY

THE RIGHT HON. JOHN WILSON CROKER,

LL.D., F.R^.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1848.

ft

y

MARVAI^D COLLEGE LIBRARY

FROM the: LILfTARYOF

)BI^M/qLIEL BRADFORD VI

MAY 24, 1942

LaodoDS I'hnlcd by Wiluam (^wrsa and Soir:^, Slamlord Street

( iii )

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Prefatory and Biographical Nodoe Page ix

CHAPTER L

Introdoctioa--State and Views of Parties at the deatb of George I. :
Whigs, Tories, Hanoverians, Jacobites — Characters of Pulteney, Boling-
broke, Walpole, and Wyndbam 1 -^■'

CHAPTER II.

AcceaaioQ of Geoige 11^— Sir Spencer Cbraptoo designated as Fii-st
Minister — His incapacity and blunders^— Aspect of the Court — Walpole — ]
supported by the Queen, and continued in office — Hervey's attachment to
Walpole — Civil List and Queen's Jointure settled — Few official changes
— Sir William Yonge — ^Lord Berkeley — Lord Torrington — The battle
of Cape Passaro— Motives of the King's adeptimi of Walpole— Mrs.
Howard— Mary Bellenden— Superior influence of tJie Queen • 30

CHAPTER IIL

Forragn affiurs— The Quadruple AUiaiice^Duke of Blppeida— -Treaty of
Vienna of 1726~Treaty of Hanover— State of France— Louis XV.—
Cardinal Fleury — The King of Prussia — Forces of the respective parties
to the Treaties 66

CHAPTER IV.

New Parliament— The Coronations-Creation of Peers — Mrs. Clayton —
Queen's Management of the King — Libels — Character of Lord Scar-
borough and of Lord Chesterfield compared 88

CHAPTER V.

Meeting ai ParUament— Speaker Oiitlow*^liiiqui|3ous decisioa of Election
Petitions— Preliminary Artidea of Peaoe^Vote of Credit— Sir Thomas
Ha&mer— Congress of Soissons— Rupiture between Walpole and Town- ^
sbend--It8 canses— Character of Townshend— Houghton— Townshend

Party— Miss Skenett 100

a2

IV CONTENTS OP VOL. I.

CHAPTER VI.

Complaints against Spain — The Beggars' Opera-— Duchess of Queensberry
forbidden the Court — ^Deficiency in the Civil List — Sir Paul Methuen —
Dispute between George II. and the Ring of Prussia — Royal duel-
Lord Henrey's return from Italy — His political position— Breaks with
Mr. Pulteney^Treaty of Seville— Debate on the Hessian Troops— De-
bate on Dunkirk, and Lord Hervey's Pamphlet^Townshend resigns —
Lord Hervey Vice-Chamberlain Page 119

CHAPTER Vn.

Attempt of the Dissenters to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts —
Walpole wishes to suppress it — Engages the Queen to induce Bishop
Hoadley to dissuade the Dissenters — Hoadley's difficulties — Wal pole's
arguments — Negotiation between the Dissenters and the Cabinet • 144

CHAPTER Vni. /

The Excise Scheme— Alarm of the Country— Walpole's resolution— Ses-
sion of Parliament— The Army voted— Cabal of the Lords— Lord Stair's
Remonstrance with the Queen — Queen's Reply — Repeated to Lord
Hervey — General clamours against the Excise— Popular delusion • 1 59

CHAPTER IX.

Mobs at Westminster — The Excise unpopular in the House — Minorities
decrease— Anxiety of the King — His views of Government — Influenced
by the Queen — ^Lord Scarborough's remonstrance— Walpole hesitates,
and o£fers to retire— Spirit of the King and Queen— Opposition at
Court— Her notions of official discipline — ^The Excise Scheme abandoned
— Riots — Complained of in Parliament| and turned to the advantage of
the Minister 179

CHAPTER X.

Walpole resolves to punish official mutineers — Lords Chesterfield and
Clinton dismissed — Character of the other Ministers and Courtiers— The
Prince of Wales and his Friends hostile — Walpole assembles his Party
and harangues them — Triumph in the Commons — South Sea Question in
the Lords — Deserters— Bbhop Hoadley 206

CHAPTER XI.

Efforts of the Court to obtain a Majority in the Peerfr— The Queen and
Bishop Hoadley — Marriage of Princess Royal — Portrait of the Prince of
Orange— Dissatisfaction of the Prince of Wales — Defeat of Ministers
in the Lords on the South Sea aflair — The Opposition go too far— Are
checked, and sign ofiensive Protests — Lord Hervey called to the House
of Peers— The Session closes, and the Court goes oat of Town • 229

gONTENTS OP VOL. L v

CHAPTEB XII.

Affiura of Poland — ^Bival claimfl of the Elector of Saxony and Stanislaus
Leczinski — ^The Emperor and the Czarina support the former, France
the latter— Stanislaus elected by intrigue and violence — Approved by
Lord Hervey and Walpole, but distasteful to the King and Newcastle-
Stanislaus expelled, and Augustus elected— War between France and the
Emperor— Treaty between France and Savoy — Opinion of George II.
on it — The French sme Lorraine — Royal Hunting — Lord Hervey's
intercourse and conversation with the King and Queen — Advocates
neutrality : so does Walpole— Negotiation in London between the Em-
peror and Spain— Delays of the Emperor— Spain concludes with France
—The Emperor loses Italy Page 247

CHAPTER Xin.

Marriage of Princess Royal— Arrival of Prince of Orange— King's treat-
ment of him — ^Lord Hervey reports ill of his person, but well of his
mind — ^Behaviour of the Princess — Prince falls dangerously ill — ^Prinoe
of Wales's dissension with the King — His revenue — ^Lwd Hervey*s
advice — ^Tbe Qneen's answer — King's Speech — Lord Hervey moves the
Address— New Peerages — ^Lord Chancellor Talbot — Lord Chief-Justice
Hardwicke — Lord Chancellor King — ^Dukes of Marlborough and Bed-
ford— Bill to make Army Commissions for life — King's ungiving dispo-
sition—Duke of Richmond— *< Court Drudge "—Further particuhirs of
the Queen's character and conduct 271

CHAPTEB XIV.

Proceedings in Pariiament — ^The Prince of Wales's Afiairs and his Cha-
racter— Increase of the Army — Vote of Confidence — Lord Hervey
disapproves of both — High state of Literature — Marriage of the Princess
Royal— Figure of the Bridegroom — Pretensions of the Irish Peers —
Horace Walpole — End of the Session — Speaker Onslow Treasurer of
the Navy— Lord Stair dismissed — Prince and Princess of Orange depart
— Miss Vane— Elections — Dissatisfaction of the King and Queen — Lord
laU and the Duke of Argyle • . • 296

CHAPTER XV.

Foreign affidrs — War on the Continent— Campaign in Italy — Pretender in
the Spanish army — Conquest of Sicily — Historical Account of Sicily —
Battles of Parma and Guastalla— War in Germany— Siege of Philips-
burg— Siege and surrender of Dantzic — Gallantry of Count Pl^lo—
Flight of King Stanislaus— Policy of Cardinal Fleury and of Sir Robert *
Walpole — Counteracted by Hatolf and the Hanoverian Interest, and by
the Queen— Opinion of the English Ministers— Character of Count
Kinski— Peace preserved 338

VI CONTBNTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER XVL

Increased Favour of Lord Henrey — ^Addreaees a Political Letter to the

Queen — ^Mission ofM. Waaner — Extraordinary History and Proceedings

of Strickland, Bishop of Namur — Lord Hervey's Conference with Sir R.

Walpole — Walpole'a Management of the King and Queen — ^Apology for

— r Egotism— Sir R. Walpole's System of Government • . Page 382

CHAPTER XVIL

Reception of the Prince and Princess of Orange m Holland — Horace
Walpole*s unsuccessful Negotiations — Details and tracasseries about the
Princess of Orange's lyingp-in — She sets out for Harwich — Suddenly re-
turns— Illness of the Queen — Confidential Communication of Sir Robert
to her Miyesty — ^Alarm lest the King should have overheard it . 404

CHAPTER XVIIL

Lady Suffolk— Rupture with the King---Goes to Bad) — Resolves to retire
--Sentiments of the Royal Family, Walpole, and the Public on this change
— Dodiugton discarded by the Prince — Favour of Lyttelton — Princess of
Orange puts to sea from Harwich, but returns — Proceeds at last by
Calais — Foreign Afiairs — Marriage of Don Carlos — Church Promotions
— Hoadley reluctantly advanced to Winchester — Struggle for and against
Rundle — ^Benson and Seeker appointed to Gloucester and Bristol, and
Bundle to Derry 423

CHAPTER XIX.

Household Offices — ^Duke of Richmond Master of the Horse ; Lord Pem-
broke Groom of the Stole ; Lord Godolphin's Pension and Peerage —
Characters of these two Lords — Ideal Marriage of the Prince of Wales —
Parliament meets — 90,000 Seamen voted — Reasons for and against — Sir
Joseph Jekyll — Marlborough Election — ^Miss Skerrett — ^Election Peti-
tion of the Scotch Peers — Debate in the Lords on the Troops — Walpole
resists the disposition of the King and Queen to War — ^Public Expenses
— ^Finance — Sinking Fund — Ministerial Changes — ^Messrs. Winnington
and Fox. recommended by Lord Hervey — King*s Journey to Hanover
opposed by Walpole in vwn — Madame de Walmoden — Strange confi-
dences to tiie Queen 466

Afpkitdix 505

( vii )

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.

VOLUME I.

Page 25, note 17— Sir W. Wyndham was born in 1686.

Page 51, note 20 — After hardlj credible add-^ii it had not received confirma-
tion from the Qneen herself, pott^ iL 478.

Page 56, note 25 — add—^aee post, i. 430, and Chesterfield*s * Character* of Ladj
Suffolk.

Page 96, note 8— He himself in his < Letters' (24th May, 1750) lets ns know
that his height was under 5 feet 8, bat does not specify how mach— perhaps
an inch or two. He mentions also (15th February, 1754) the early dis-
colour of his teeth.

Psge 129, note 1 1— far increased reiu^— offered to increase.

Page 131-/or 1703 r«a<i— 1780.

Page 206, note \—for Lincoln rea<f~Clinton.

Page 228, note 14— /or a great genius read—iio great genius.

Page 273, note 2— for p. 319 read--p. 321.

Page 298, note— for 1750 read— 1751.

Psge 325^ note 19 — add^hat the character of Addison, to which this line be-
longs, had been printed earlier.

Page 337, note— for 245 read—ilO,

Page S47'-for assidiis reoJ—assiduis.

Page 389, note 5— add after Wassenaar— He was afterwards Austrian Minister
at our court

Page 443, line 23-/or Mr. C O. rea<f--Mr8. Clayton.

Page 473, note 4 — I find the two sitting Members were in opposition both to the
Court and Lord Hertford, but I still cannot account for the other discre-

PREFATORY AND BIOGRAPHICAI KOTICE.

The existence of Lord Hervey's * Memoirs from his
first coming to Court to the Death of the Queen ' * was
announced to the world in 1757 in Walpole's * data-
logue of Royal and Noble Authors^' and in 1788 we
find Lord Hailes, in a note to his compilation of the
Opinions of the Duchess of Marlborough, saying, with
reference to the quarrel between George II. and
Frederick Prince of Wales —

^* I cannot discover what was the real cause of this unhappy
quarrel. The Duchess seems to think that it originated in the
motion for augmenting the Prince's revenue. It is probable that
the wTtole matter will be explained to posterity should the Memoirs
of Lord Hervey ever see the light. I have reason to believe they
are written with great freedom. And here I must be permitted
to observe, that they who suppress such memorials of modem
times do all that in them lies to leave the history of the eigh-
teenth century in darkness. In the sixteenth century it was the
&3hion to preserve original papers, during the eighteenth it is
the fashion to destroy them. Hence we know more of the
reign of Queen Elizabeth than we do of the reign of George I."
— Opinions.

Mr. Bowles, in his Life of Pope (1806), says : —

1 Lord Hervey's own title is given at the head of the Memoirs.
VOL. I, b

X LOKD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

" Lord Hervey wrote Memoirs of his Own THmej with strict
injunctions that they were not to be published until the decease
of his present Majesty (George III.). TJiey are now in the
possession of Lord Hervey's son, General Hervey, and will be
published as soon as the event mentioned takes place.''

This injunction was not given by Lord Hervey,
but in the will of his son Augustus, third Earf of
Bristol ; and Lord Hailes himself if he had seen the
MS., would, no doubt, have been, as every reader will
now be, of opinion that the reserve of the possessors
of the Memoirs was dictated by unquestionable feelings
of dielicacy and duty. The prescribed period, however,
has been now exceeded by a quarter of a century, and
it is hoped that after the lapse of 1 10 years since it
was written, this contribution to the history of the
eighteenth century, so desiderated by Lord Hailes
and in itself so curious, may be at last, without impro-
priety, given to the public.

The MS., which is wholly autograph, is remarkably
clear and legible, and it is now presented to the reader
in extenso, with the following exceptions.

There are some chasms in the MS., occasioned by
former possessors having destroyed several sheets here
and there, that appear to have contained additional
details of the dissensions in the Royal Family; of
which, however, so much stiU remains that we need
hardly, I think, regret the want of more. These omis-
sions have spared us, no doubt, some scandal; but
they have not, it is believed, essentially diminished the
historical value of Lord Hervey's work. On this,
however, the reader will be in some degree enabled to
form his own conjectures; for the places and extent

PREFATORY NOTICB. m

of the omissions are almost everywhere noted,^ and
the context will generally indicate the character of
what is lost

My own deviations from the MS. have been the
correction of the somewhat lax and antiquated ortho-
graphy— the suppression here and there of an indelicate
expression, and the substitution of a more decent equi-
valent It must be recollected that the style of the
day, both in conversation and correspondence, was
often very coarse — the best bred men and the most
elegant women talked and wrote in a style that has
been long banished from good society. They were in
the habit, as Swift said and practised, of ^^ calling a
spade a spade;" and without asserting dogmatically
(what, nevertheless, there seems good reason to hope)
that both the morals and manners of modern society
are essentially improved, we may at least venture to
say that they are more decorous. Lord Holland,
in editing Walpole's first Memoirs, and every one, I
suppose, who has had to perform that office for any
familiar letters of the earlier part of the last century,
has been obliged to retrench or correct many verbal
breaches of decorum. The total suppression of such
passages would be an obvious remedy, and the most
satisfactory, but for one consideration — the very in-
delicacies are important items towards the history
of general manners and the estimate of individual

* I find, cm comparing the copy supplied to me with the original manu-
script, that four or five of the0e omissions were not noticed. One of the
longest of these occurred at p. 316 of yoI. i., after the mention of the
Prince and Lord Herrey; but they all evidently are of the character
mentioned in the text.

h 2

xu LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

character, and to omit them altogether, or to smooth
down such irregularities to our more decent level, would
really be a deception. They should be suppressed, but
not concealed. Whenever, therefore, any such instances
occur (and they are not very numerous), I have noted,
as Lord Holland did, the place of the omission, and
have distinguished any substituted words by brackets,
thus [ ]. On this point the most serious criticism that
I expect to hear is that I have not gone far enough ;
and though I hope I have removed every expression
positively offensive to a delicate mind, I acknowledge
that there is a great deal — particularly as to the feel-
ings and temper of the Royal Family — which I wish I
could have felt myself authorised to suppress: that,
however, would have been an unpardonable distortion
— indeed, a falsification — of my materials ; and after all
a useless one — for Walpole's Reminiscences and Memoirs
and the recently published extracts from the Diaries of
Lord-Chancellors King and Hardwicke reveal, though
not in such detail as Lord Hervey gives, the sub-
stantial facts that I should have been most anxious to
suppress.

I have therefore, on the whole, thought it my duty
to exhibit the Memoirs as Lord Hervey himself had
left them for publication, with the exceptions I have
just stated ; though few readers, I believe, would regret
if some other episodes of a very different character had
been omitted — I mean sundry digressions on foreign
affairs, which, however interesting in the court of
George IL, are now wholly obsolete, and contain
nothing that is not already to be found in all the
ordinary histories.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xui

After these introductory observations, I proceed to
give the reader the best account I can of the extra-
ordinary author of this extraordinary work.

A knowledge of the personal partialities of an his-
torian, even when he deals with remote periods and
persons, sometimes helps to elucidate his works. But
with those who write the history of their own times
and of affairs to which they have been active and
interested parties, we can hardly have too intimate an
acquaintance, and every detail of their lives becomes
important to the value of their evidence. For this
reason I have endeavoured (at the risk of being in
other respects tedious) to collect as much as I could of
the private life and character of Lord Hervey as
a useful, and indeed essential, preliminary to his
Memoirs.

He was the eldest son of John, first Earl of Bristol,
by his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas
Felton and Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter and
heiress of the third Earl of Suffolk.

An elder son, by a former marriage, Carr, Lord
Hervey — " was reckoned," said Horace Walpole, " to
have had parts superior to those of his more cele-
brated brother;" and Pope, in one of his sarcastic
appeals to the second Lord Hervey, professes his plea-
sure at paying to the memory of the first " the debt
I owed to his firiendship, whose early death deprived
your family of as much loit and honour as he left behind
him in any branch of it." But these good qualities
were obscured by great irregularities of conduct, and
extinguished by an early death.

XIV LORD HERYSrS MEMOIRS.

Carr, Lord Hervey, is said, in Lady Louisa Stuart's
introductory observations to Lord Whamcliffe's edition
of the Works of her grandmother. Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, to have been notoriously the father of Horace
Walpole — an opinion strongly supported by various
circumstances mentioned by Lady Louisa, and further
corroborated by the revelations, in the following
Memoirs, of Sir Robert Walpole's almost incredible
laxity in both the principle and practice of conjugal
fidelity. The resemblance, indeed, of Horace to that
remarkable family, whose peculiar originality of mind
and character gave rise to Lady Mary's division of
the human species into " Men, Women^ and Herveys,**
is very striking, and these Memoirs will, I think, add
considerably to the general likeness.

The father of the young Lords, John Hervey,
Esquire, of Ickworth, near Bury in SuflTolk, a country
gentleman of ancient family and ample fortune, repre-
sented that borough — as he and his ancestors had done
for a long series of parliaments — ^till March, 1703,
when, through the friendship of the Duke of Marl-
borough and the influence of the Duchess,' he was
created Lord Hervey, a title which had already existed
and become extinct in a junior branch of his family ;*

s The Duchess distinctly states is her ^Accouni if her Conduct^' that she
did it altogether at the request of Sir Thomas Felton, Mrs. Hervey*s
father — to whom she had promised it Lord Bristol, however, acknow-
ledges his obligation to the Duke, and even says in one of his lettan to
his Grace, 9th July, 1704, that he had on his peerage retained the motto
of ** Je n*aMieray jamais*' with special reference to his gratitude to his
Grace.

^ William Henrey, second son of John Hervey of Ickworth, was an
eminent naval and military officer. He distinguished himself in the defeat
of the Armada ; was knighted ia 1696 ; created a baronet in 1619 ; next year,

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xv

and at the acGession of Georgie I. he was created Earl
of Bristol ; his wife was appointed a Lady of the Prin-
cess's Bedchamher, and his eldest son a Lord of the
Prince's.

Lord Bristol appears, from a large collection of his
correspondence whi^h has been c^eiully preserved, to
have been one of the best of men, though not without
some share of Uiat peculiar character just alluded to.
He, however, sees^ to have had the better parts
only of this piquant originality. He was highly ac-
complished— an elegant scholar, and what might even
be called learned, for his reading was extensive and
uncommon. He was familiar with the best classical
and modern poets, and wrote* verses himself Though
evidently a fine gentleman in taste and manners, he
was, in the habits and occupations oi^ at least, the
latter half of his life, a good deal of the country squire.
In his family he seems to have been the fondest, most
indulgent, and most patient of husbands and fathers under
many hard trials of his temper in both Uiose capacities,
and, to complete tibis amiable character, he was, from
first to last, a very peculiar exaqiple of Christian piety.

Lord Rp89, in Ireland ; and in 1627, Lord Herrey, in England. He died
in 1S42, and was buried, with great pomp, in Westminster Abbey. He
left an only daughter, who married her cousin, John Hervey, uncle of the
first Lord Bristol, whose &ther Sir Thomas — ^his brother leaving no issue —
succeeded to Ickworth.

^ I find in his letter-book several of his copies of verses : they are in the
affected style of Cowley, to which his family friendship for that poet might
have naturally led him. His grandiather had been a patron of Cowley,
whose elegy on his great uncle, WHliam Hervey, is one of the best of his
works; and though neither it nor Lycidas (which it much resembles)
can be altogether defended from some of the matter-of-fact criticisms of
Johnson, I wonder that any one having eye, ear, or heart, could be insen-
ttUe to the imagery, music, and tendeniess of both.

xvi LORD HERYETS MEMOIRS.

In all the events of his life, painful or fortunate, the
first and sometimes very enthusiastic effusions of his
grief or his gratitude were towards Heaven. Of his
father, Sir Thomas Hervey, he writes to the tutor of
one of his sons : — " His piety, chastity, charity, truths
and fustice^ mixed mth wonderful wit and innocent mirthj
made singularly his own that comprehensive character —
Ita in singulis virtutibus eminebat quasi coeteras non
haberety His own son has said as much of him.

In politics Lord Bristol was a Whig of the old school ;
and of course — ^while professing " to hold an equal ba-
lance between, the prerogatives of the Crovm and thepri-
vileges of the people^ and maintain the monarchy and
hierarchy in their just and legal rights ** — he was a warm
supporter of Revolution principles and of the Hanover
succession, and his promotion to the Earldom (19th Oc-
tober, 1714) was one of the earliest acts of the new
reign ; but after that event — whether resenting the ne-
glect shown to the Duke of Marlborough, or thinking
that the Whigs were deviating from their earlier prin-
ciples, particularly in the maintenance of a standing
army, or firom any more personal motive • — he appears

« I know not whether he would have accepted office, but I think he
would have been pleased to have had the offer. He gives early hints of
dissatisfaction with the Minister ; and in one letter, of December, 1716, to
his son John, then at Hanover, he warns him, that if he should come home
in the King's train, he may chance, being an unofficial follower, to have
sorry accommodation, ** should those who attend the King there take no
more care in provicUng for the son, than others whom his Majesty has
thought JU to entrust here ever did for the father. However, be to them,
I conjure you, Kke your constant father —

* True as the dial to the eun,
Although you are not shined upon^ **

This seems rather unreasonable firom one who had been so lately raised

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xvii

to have taken little part in public affairs^ and to have
adopted in private a strong tone of opposition to Sir
Robert Walpole and his administration.

This portrait^ sketched from a lai^e mass of private
letters which evolve all the thoughts and transactions of
his life, very closely resembles that given of him by his
son towards the close of the Memoirs {post, ii. 437),
and I introduce it the rather because it seems pro-
bable that Lord Hervey derived from this almost for-
gotten but remarkable man all the better as well as
some of the more brilliant peculiarities of his cha-
racter.

Differing in political opinion, in the habits of their
lives, and, unfortunately for the son, still more in moral
conduct and religious impressions, there seems to have
been a strong resemblance in their styles, tastes, man-
ners, and turns of thought; and it is not the least
peculiar circumstance of their history that, notwith-
standing this opposition of principles and similarity
of tempers, they lived together in the most unbounded
and uninterrupted confidence and affection.

John Hervey was educated at Westminster School
under Dr. Friend, whence he was removed, the 20th

to the peerage, and advanced to an Earldom within two years—'* the only
fayour," — writes Lord Henrey in an epitsiph prepared for his father —

'* The only favour that the Crown could give,
He thought worth asking, or would e*er receive ;
The name of servant was too near to slave,**

Gage's Suffolk.

Tet he did not disdain that name for his lady and four, at least, of his
sons, who had Court places, while the Earl fancied himself and his family
neglected. But this grumbling on paper, whilst he was in his daily devo-
tions thanking Heaven for his worldly prosperity and success, was one of
the peculiarities of the good man.

3^vm LOBB HERYEY'S MEMOIRS.

November, 1713, to Clare Hall, Cambridge, where he
graduated M.A. as a nobleman in 1715. In his
vacations he often attended his father (at that time a
distinguished patron of the turf) to Newmarket, and
showed a turn and talent for jockeyship, which his
father's sagacity was willing to encourage as tending to
manly tastes and habits. On one occasion he was to
have ridden a celebrated match, but the fond terrors of
his mother overruled his own and his father's widxes :
it was, however, some consolation to both, that the
substituted jockey won the race by following the judi*
cious advice of the younger, in preference to the orders
of his elder master-
In the summer of 1716 he visited Paris, and after
spending some months there was directed by his faUier
to picoceed through Austrian Flanders to pay his court
at Hanover, where George I. then was. His brother,
Carr, had been sent on a like politic errand in Queen
Anne^s time, and had ingratiated himself with the
Elector, and more particularly with his son Prince
George, and on the accession had been appointed one of
his Boyal Highness's Lords oi the Bedchamber. The
old Lord anticipated a similar good rekstllt from this
visit, and was much pleased to find that " dear Jack "
had laid a sure foundation in the favour of his Majesty's
grandson. Prince Frederick--of " the blooming beauties
of whose person and character" the young traveller had
given his father a lively description.

It had been intended that he should proceed through
Germany to Italy, but ^^ the fears and tears" of his
mother forced his reluctant faliier to give up that project
and recall him to England. At this time ^^ his genius

BIOOBAPHICAL NOTICE. xix

tended to some military employ," and hiis mother —
whose apprehensions^ it seems, were for his health and
morals radier than of personal risk — suggests his pre-
ferring a petition, in her name and witdi his own graces,
to a certain great lady (the DnoheiBS of Kendal proba-
bly) to obtain for him a commission in the GuardsJ

How Hervey occupied his time after his retom to
England does not appear, but all idea of the army or
any other profession seems to have been soon aban-
doned, and he spent much of his time wiUi his father
in the retirement of Ickworth, and the rest, probably,
in the fashionable and literary circles of the metro-
polis. He even then cultivated his own poetical taste
so assiduously as to induce his anxious father to urge
him to prepare himself for public and especially par-
liamentary life, by more serious and useftd studies
than ** the perpetual pursuit of poetry."

During the waiting of his mother and his brother he
was a frequent visitor to the Court of the Prince and
Princess at Bichmond, where he soon became a great
personal favourite ; and here he made those acquaint-
ances which biassed in various ways his future career.
At this period Pope and his literary friends were in great
favour at this young court, of which, in addition to the
handsome and clever Princess herself, Mrs. Howard,
Mrs. Selwyn, Miss Howe, Miss Bellenden, and Miss

7 In this request Lord Bristol, in spite of his avernon to a standing armjr,
Erectly ooncnrred, and did, in fact, procure commissions for two younger
sons ; though bis prejudice became afterwards so strong that the only
serious diUference I hare discorered between him and Lord Herrey was
in consequence of the latter's putting to son George into the Guards.—-
See/NMT, ii. 693.

XX LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

Lepell, with Lords Chesterfield, Bathurst, Scarborough,
and Hervey, were the chief ornaments. Above all for
beauty and wit were Miss Bellenden and Miss Lepell/
who seem to have treated Pope, and been in return
treated by him, with a familiarity that appears rather
strange in our more decorous days. These young
ladies probably considered him as no more than what
Aaron Hill described him : —

<< Tuneful Alexis on the Thames' fiur side,
The ladies' plaything and the Muses' pride."

Very intimate and very familiar they certainly became
with him, and with his friend Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, who at his suggestion had now taken a villa
at Twickenham.

In this gay and giddy society John Hervey soon
attached himself to Miss, or, as it was then the fashion
to say, Mrs. Lepell — the daughter and heiress of Bri-
gadier-General Nicholas Lepell. Of her person, mind,
and manners there is from all her contemporaries a
chorus of praise : even Pope, when he subsequently so
unmercifully libelled Lord Hervey, made his satire
the keener by praising his wife; and Lady Louisa
Stuart, who happily preserves to our age the tradi-

9 The books state that she was born 26th September, 1700 ; but Pope,
in a letter that mentions the recent death of Dr. Radcliffe, who died 6th
November, 1714, describes her and her friend Miss Bellenden as then
maids of honour to the Princess. If all this be so. Miss Lepell was a maid
of honour when she was barely fourteen. She was of the family to whom
belonged the little Channel Island of Sark. I find in the Magaanes for
1743 the death of 'Nicholas LepeU, Esq., Lord Proprietor of Sarh:
The natives of Sark are more than half French, and this probably gave the
French tinge to Lady Hervey*8 tastes and manners— « subject of frequent
pleasantry with her friends and herself.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xxi

tions of the last, says of her that it might be suspected
that

" Lord Hervey's avowed enemies — Pope for one — went out
of their way to compliment and eulogise her. However, their
praises were not unmerited : by the attractions she retained
in age she must have been singularly captivating when young,
gay, and handsome ; and never was there so perfect a model of
the finely polished, highly bred, genuine woman of fashion.
Her manners had a foreign tinge which some called affected,
but they were gentle^ easy, dignified, and altogether exquisitely
pleasing."* — Introductory Anecdotes^ ubi supra.

To her more solid merits as a daughter, a wife, and
a mother we have the earlier, and nearer, and more
valuable testimony of Lord Bristol, who seems to have
been enchanted, not more by the brilliant than the
amiable qualities of his daughter-in-law, and to have
endeavoured, with a growing affection and admiration,
to render less irksome to her the occasional vivacities
of his Countess — a lady of considerable talents — a
very lively but not equable temper, and of so ready
and sharp a wit, that in one of her letters she
triumphantly tells Lord Bristol that she had answered
some impertinencies at Court so cleverly, that the

9 See also a similar character of , Lady Hervey in Chesterfield's Letters
to his Son, 22nd Oct. 1750 ; and another, if possible more favourable, in
H. Walpole's Letter to Mann^ 22 Sept. 1768. He also wrote an epitaph
on her tomb at Ickworth, with little poetry but with feeling and truth.
Churchill thus celebrates her daughter Lady Caroline : —

<< That face, that form, that dignity and <
Those powers of pleasing, and that wish to please —
By which Lepell, even in her youthful days.
Had from the currish Pope extracted praise.
We see, transmitted, in her daughter shine.
And view a new Lepetl in Caroline."

XXII LOKB HBRYBT'S MEM0IB8.

Queen said, ^^she saw that Lord Hervey had derived
his talent at repartee from his mother J*

From her too, as well as from his father, he may
have inherited some of his inde&tigable turn for
versification ; for the gods had also made her — after
a manner — poetical. There are, in a volume of family
correspondence, several copies of love verses addressed
to her husband both before and after marriage, and
one more remarkable poem of about one hundred and
fifty lines, with this title, ^An imperfect Sketch of
the Earl of BristoVs Character ; collected from several
Authors by the Countess of Bristol* The lines are
selected with judgment, and moulded together with
considerable ingenuity and success ; and at the end of
this elaborate and affectionate oento^ she adds, of her
own composition, —

^^ Could I like Cowley think or Diyden write,
In Otway'g tender words my soul indite,
I then in verse might hope to soar above
All other mortals — as I do in love V*

And this seems to have been no hyperbole : the whole
correspondence between Lord and Lady Bristol during
their occasional separations, from their marriage in
1695 to 1737, has been preserved, and it exhibits a
series of love letters^ by almost every post, of a pas-
sionate fondness that would seem excessive after a few
months' matrimony. Lord Bristol was — in all tender
emotions at least — something of an enthusiast, and the
Countess was vehement in all her feelings.

There was some mystery about the marriage of
Mr. Hervey and Miss Lepell : the publications of the
day and all the peerages date it as of the 25th of

BIOGBAPHIGAL NOTICB. xxiii

October, 1720, and there is no doubt that it was only
then publicly declared ; but there is extant a letter of
Lord Bristol, dated the 20th of May preceding, con-
gratulating the lady in the most affectionate terms on
her marriage, which, however, he calls a " secret."
In the summer of that year the young lady (still
no doubt imder her maiden name) paid a visit to
Ickworth, and in two letters after this visit, but
prior to the 25th of October, Lord Bristol again
addresses her " hy the endearing title of daughterr
I have not been able to discover in what month of
1720 Gay's curious and characteristic verses called
* Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece * (that is, on his
having finished the translation of the Iliad) were pub-
lished, but it must have been written during the
courtship and before the declaration of the marriage ;
for among Pope's congratulating friends we find the
lovers : —

^' Now Heryey, fiur of fi&ce, I mark fiill well,
With thee, youth's youogest daughter, sweet Lepell."

All the editors of Pope, misled by the terms fair of
facCj tell us that ** Hervey " meant Lady Hervey ; but
they fail to tell us who then was ^^ sweet Lepell;*' ^® but,
in fact, " Hervey '* was Lord Hervey, whose counte-
nance was remarkably, though rather effeminately
handsome. So, in a ballad celebrated in its day, we
read : —

10 Mr. Roicoe, who adopts the first blunder, makes a second by sup.
posing a younger Miss Lepell, who, I belieTe, never existed. I must
observe that most of the personal notes in all editions of Pope, Swift, and
Gay, are veiy unsatisfiictory, but on this little poem, where they are so
necessary, they are peculiarly meagre and remarkably erroneous.

XXIV LOKD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS.

<< For Venus had never seen bedded
So perfect a beau and a belle,
As when Hervey the handsome was wedded
To the beautiful MoUy LepeU.** ii

What then delayed the announcement of their union ?
It is hard to guess, but there is a clue. It will be seen
in Walpole's Reminiscences and in these Memoirs that
the Prince had been smitten by Miss LepelFs lively and
beautiful friend and colleague Mary Bellenden, who
had rejected the royal but not very delicate advances.
Walpole adds —

*^ In fact her heart was engaged, and so the Prince, finding
his love firuitless, suspected. He was even so generous as to
promise her that if she would discover the object of her choice
and not marry without his privity, he would consent to the
match and be kind to her husband. She gave him the
promise without acknowledging the person, and then, lest his
Highness should throw any obstacle in the way, she married
without his knowledge Colonel Campbell (long afterwards
Duke of Argyle), one of the grooms of his bedchamber." —
Reminiscences.

Now it turns out that the announcements of the mar-
riages of Miss Bellenden and Miss Lepell were made
about the same time, the former dated the 22nd, the
latter the 25th of October, and we know, from Walpole

11 Arbuthnot, in a letter to Swift, 8th November, 1726, gives us the
birth and parentage of this ballad. '* I gave your service to Lady
Hervey. She is in a little sort of a miif about a ballad that was writ on her
to the tune of ' Molly Mogg,' and sent her in the name of a begging poet.
She was bUy and wrote a letter to the begging poet, and desired him to
change two doubUe entendres ; which the authors — Mr. Pulteney and Lord
Chesterfield— <:h6,Bged into single entendres. I was against that, though I
had a hand in the first. She is not displeased, I believe, with the ballad,
but only with being bit" But the work of these great wits is (to say
nothing of its indelicacy) a very poor trifle — and has no other stanza
worth quoting.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xxv

and the Suffolk Papers^* as to Miss Bellenden, and
from Lord Bristol as to Miss Lepell, that both were
post-dated ; and may we not fairly infer that they in-
fluenced each other ? — that all parties might he fearM
of having offended by making a choice without the
consent of their royal patrons, and that they for mutual
support agreed to brave the storm together, and an-
nounced their marriages and consequent resignations
just previous to the courtly epoch of the birthday, the
30th of October^ when we find that two other young
ladies were appointed in their room ?

Lady Louisa Stuart's Anecdotes represent the young
couple as from the outset leading a very fashionable
life/ rather after the French than the English fashion;
but one or two random touches of her grandmother's
satirical pen cannot detract from a character so uni-
versally respected as Lady Hervey's, and in fact these
very passages, if closely looked at, contradict the im-
putation they seem to raise. But, on the other hand,
it is too clear that the gentleman's conjugal principles
and practice were very loose, and that his lady, if she
had not had an innate sense of propriety, might have
pleaded the example and the provocation of her hus-
band's infidelity.

And here it may be as well to state that Lord
Hervey's laxity of morals was accompanied, if not
originally produced, by scepticism in religion. How
a son so dutiful and affectionate, and resembling a

i> Vol. i. p. 68. It should perhaps be added, that the eldest child of
Lady Hervey was born on the Slst August, 1721, and that of Mrs. Campbell
(Caroline, afterwards wife of Marshal Conway, and mother of Mrs. Darner)
not before October, 1721. See Suffolk Papers, i. 82.

VOL. !• 0

acxvi LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

singularly pious father in so many other points, was
led into such opposite courses, we have no distinct
trace; but about the time that he exchanged the
paternal converse of Ickworth for the society of Lon-
don and the free-thinking Court of the Princess, Tindal,
Toland, Collins, and Woolston were in high vogue,
and it is too certain that Lord Hervey adopted all
their anti-Christian opinions, and, by a natural conse-
quence, a peculiar antipathy to the Church and Church-
men. This feeling, which breaks out in most of his
writings, is visible in the Memoirs on every occasion
where it could introduce itself; and in at least one
separate publication he expressly promulgated it It is
stated in Walpole's Catalogue and conjecturally in the
Biographies that a deistical defence (1732) of Mande-
ville's Fable of the Bees in answer to Berkeley's Minute
PhilosopheTy though professing to be the work of ^^ a
Country dergyman^'' was by Lord Hervey. I am sorry
to be obliged to confirm the fact ; and of the pamphlet
itself I need only add that there is no more of taste,
truth, or candour in the conduct of the argument
than there was in the composition of the title-page.

On the 15th of November, 1723, by the death of his
elder brother Carr, he succeeded to the title of Lord
Hervey, and in March, 1725, was elected Member for
Bury. I find no mention of him in Parliament, or in
politics, or even in society till January, 1728, when, on
the meeting of George II.'s first Parliament, he moved
the Address in the House of Commons. But it appears
from his confidential letter to Sir R. Walpole {post^ i. 42)
that he had previously attracted the Minister's notice
and favour; and both he and Lord Bristol were

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, x^vu

certainly disappointed at his not having been included
in the official arrangements of the new reign.

And here, though it in some degree anticipates the
course of events, I must observe — with reference to the
tone and feeling of his Memoirs from the first page
to the last, and indeed to the colour and character of
his whole life — that it seems to have been a long,
rankling, and by no means unreasonable mortification
to a young nobleman of lively talents, strong ambition,
unusual diligence, and a decided turn for politics and
business, that — neither at the outset, nor during twelve
or fourteen years of an assiduous, able, and even bril-
liant advocacy of the Ministry in both Houses of Par-
liament—should he have been thought deservmg of any
efficient office, or (as he himself, at the Queen's death,
sharply complained) of any higher duty than the
almost menial services of a Yice-Chamberlain.
Paradoxical as it may sound, it was, I believe, his
high favour with both the Queen and the Minister
that occasioned this, we may rather call it injustice than
neglect : the truth seems to be that he had obtained so
much familiarity and &vour with her Majesty, and was
90 essentially useiul to Walpole in that all-important
quarter, that though Sir Bobert, in 1733, gratified his
friend and strengthened the Administration by calling
him up to the House of Lords and assigning him a con-
fidential share in its debates, he was unwilling or afraid
to lose his more delicate services at the ear of the
Queen. Lord Hervey had talents which might pro-
bably have been more advantageously developed on a
graver scene ; but, however that may be, there is reason
to suppose that his own dissatisfaction, and we know

c 2

xxviii LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS.

that of Lord Bristol, went on increasing, till on the
Queen's death the obstacle (according to my hypo-
thesis) was removed, and Lord Hervey was, probably
as soon as Walpole could make the arrangement, ap-
pointed to a high cabinet oflSce — too late, however, to
add much to the strength of his tottering party, or to
his own reputation as a practical statesman. But we
must return to an earlier period.

Lord Hervey, who seems to have had delicate health
even in his youth, became as he grew up a valetu-
dinarian. This, though probably constitutional, Lord
Bristol ascribes to the use of " that detestable and poison-
Otis plant — tea, which had once brought him to death's
door, and if persisted in would carry him through
it ;*' and he implores him in the most pathetic terms
to give it up. Lord Hervey, however, had more faith
in a change of climate — which, besides its influence
on his bodily ailments, would remove him for a season
from the House of Commons, the scene of his recent '
political disappointment — and very shortly after he
had moved the Address, he set out for Italy, ac-
companied by Mr. Stephen Fox, whose chief induce-
ment to the journey was — we are told in a poetical
epistle addressed to him by Lord Hervey at Florence
— to attend the invalid." In this piece, after expa-
tiating on the gratitude which he owes to his friend,
and describing some of the scenes they had visited, he
at last turns his thoughts homewards.

IS It at first sight seems that he might have been more suitably accom-
panied by Ladj Henrey, but we must recollect that she had alr^y four
young children to look after. We find in one of Lord Bristors letters to
Lord Hervey, while abroad, affectionate mention of "the number and
len£^ of his letters to Lady Herrey," but none of them have been found.

BIOGBAPHICAL NOTICE. xxix

" O ! would kind Heaven, these tedious sufferings past,

Permit me Ickworth, rest, and health at last,

In that lov'd shade, my youth's delightful seat.

My early pleasure and my late retreat.

« « « « •

There might I trifle carelessly away

The milder evening of life's clouded day ;

From business and the world's intrusion free,

With books, with love, with beauty, and with thee.

« • « « «

But if the GkKls, sinister still, deny

To live in Ickworth, let me there but die ;

Thy hands to close my eyes in death's long night,

Thy image to attract their latest sight ;

Then to the grave attend thy poet's hearse.

And love his memory as you loved his verse."

To this sentimental effusion — more like the address
of a lover of twenty to his mistress, than of a man of
thirty-three to his friend — ^Lady Mary Wortley, when
it reached her, subjoined this commentary : —
'^ So sung the poet in a humble strain,
TVith empty pockets and a head in pain.
When the soft clime inclined the soul to rest,
And pastoral images inspired the breast ;
Apollo listened from his heavenly bower,
And, in his health restored, expressed his power.
« « « « *

Returning vigour glowed in every vein,
And gay ideas fluttered through the brain ;
Back he returns to breathe his native air.
And all his late resolves are melted there."^^

14 Both poems may be seen at length in Lady Mary's Works, iii. 376.
Lord Hervey's Epistle is in Dodsley's Collection, iii. 181, and is followed
by another, also addressed to Mr. Fox, dated 1781, less commendable for
either morals or poetry. The four best lines in it are marked by Lord
Hervey's torn for antithesis —

'* For life has joys adapted to each stage ;

Love for our youth, ambition for our age ;

But wilful man, inverting her decrees,

When young would govern, and when old would please."
The vernfication of all these poems seems to me very much superior to
the nigged specimens we shall see in the Memoirs.

xxx- LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS.

Lady Mary was right. He came home, and never
again willingly visited Ickworth; nor was it till his
dismissal from office that he b^an to imagine the
possibility of enduring that banishment; which, on
the contrary, the old Earl seldom mentions without
some affectionate epithet, as " dear Ickworth " — " sweet
Ickworth;*

I cannot exactly ascertain the dates of the Four
Epistles after the manner of Ovid (nor, indeed, of some
other pieces), which appear as Lord Hervey's in the
4th vol. of Dodsley's * Collection,' on which so much
of his poetical reputation was founded.** That which
Walpole prefers, * Monimia to PhilocleSj* was written,
I suppose, before he went abroad. It was designed,
Walpole says, for the giddy and unfortunate Sophia
Howe, Maid of Honour to the Princess (who died in
1726) and Mr. Anthony Lowtber; and seems to have
more of reality and truth mingled with its tenderness
than the general run of those pedantic imitations which
Pope's * Sappho to Phaon^* and still more, his * Eloisa'
had brought into fashion. Hervey's other epistles are
much inferior. But there is another piece in the same
volume, purporting to be an ^ Answer^' by Lord Hervey,
in the character of Miss Dashwood," to the least frigid

" Betides the pieces of Lord Hervey's meotioned by Walpole and Park
{Noble Authort), the following are to be found in the ^ New Foundling
Hospital for Wit/ i. 239, et seq. < Venes to Mr. Poyntz, toUh Secier*$
Sermon on Education^' the * Epigram on CkUwick ' (post, toI. ii. p, 146),
and a longer satire on the same villa.

i« Amidst this gossip of the last century, I shall, perhaps, be forgiven
for recording that my old acquaintance. Lady Corke, who died in 1840, at
the age of ninety-four, told me that she had known KUty Dashwood very
well, and that Hammond undoubtedly died for love; *^the only instance
of the kind," she said, *< that she had ever known in her long life." Kitty

BIOQKAPmCAL NOTICE. xxxi

of Hammond^s Elegiacal addresses to his Delia, which
is in a better style, both of poetry and good sense, and
which even now may be read with pleasure. There
seems, however, some mystery as to the authorship of
this poem. It is stated expressly in Dodsley (p. 79)
to be ^^ by the late Lord Heroey ;" but I have before
me a volume from the library at Ickworth, in which
Lord Hervey had collected several poems attributed to
himself and Lady Mary Wortley, and in this volume
I find, under the date of 1743, what seems the first
edition of this ^Answerj* purporting on the original title-
page to be " 6y a Lady, author of the Verses to the Imi-
tator of Horace.'^ Was this a false title-page, or was
Lady Mary the author ? or was it a conjoint produc-
tion ? I postpone the discussion of these questions till
we arrive at the * Verses to the Imitator of Horace,*
about which tibie same kind of difiGiculty hangs.

Before Lord Hervey's return from Italy, George IL
had been most reluctantly driven into bringing Prince
Frederick, now just of i^e, to England, and creating
him Prince of Wales; and I need make no apology for
giving the earliest portrait I have found of a person
who occupies so large a share in Lord Hervey's per-
sonal history as well as in his Memoirs. Lady Bristol
writes on the 7th of January, 1729, to her Lord whom
she had just left : —

** My three days' journey [from Ickworth to town] was sup-
ported by as many doses of laudanum, the strength of whidi

had at fint aooepted, but afterwards rejected him, on— Lady Corke, and
indeed all Kitty's contemporaries, ihoughtr^prudential reasons ; and this
is the tone of Lord Hervey's answer. Hammond died in 1742, and Miss
Dashwood in 1779, bedchamber-woman to Queen Charlotte.

zxxii LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

enabled me to go to Court yesterday, where /was most gra-
ciously received and you kindly inquired after. I introduced
Lady Hervey to the Prince of Wales — the most agreeable
young man it is possible to imagine, without being the least
handsome ; his person little, but very well made, and genteel ;
a liveliness in his eyes that is indescribable, and the most
obliging address that can be conceived ; but £ae crown of all
his perfection is, that great duty ana regam ne pays the King
and Queen, with such a mixture of affection, as if obli^ng
them were the greatest pleasure of his life, and they receive
it with the utmost joy and satisfaction, and the father's fond-
ness seems to equal the tenderness of the mother ; so that, I
believe, the world never produced a royal family so happy in
one another. Pray God lonff to continue it.^^

It did not long continue ; and the tardy coming of
the Prince, as well as some other circumstances (^post^ iL
412), give us reason to suspect that, even at the outset,
all was not as cordial as it appeared.

Lord Hervey returned from Italy about the middle
of September, 1729, and he appears to have soon im-
proved the impression he had made on the Prince at
Hanover into great intimacy and favour. There is an
expression in the Memoirs referring to the time when
Lord Hervey ^^ first came about him " (vol. ii. p. 384),
which seems to imply that he had belonged officially
to the Prince's family, but there is no other trace of
any such employment, and his having a pension of
1000/. a-year from the King, who was a strict economist
in such matters, seems inconsistent with his holding also
a place. The studied silence in which Lord Hervey
buries his earlier intercourse and subsequent quarrel
with the Prince {post^ i. 159, n.), leaves the details ot
their friendship and their enmity in much obscurity:
certain it is that a short but close intimacy was followed

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xxxui

by a deep and lasting hatred ; of which a rivalry for,
and, what is worse, a community in, the favour of the
unfortunate Miss Yane, had no doubt a large share : ^"^
but there can be little doubt that there were also some
political tracas8erie3 between them. However this may
be, it is certain that the dark picture the Memoirs
give us of the Prince must be received with a large
allowance for the prejudice of thej^painter.

We now come to the busy part of his life where the
Memoirs begin, but they are written, as the reader
will see, with much reserve as to his personal history ;
all that they in their present state tell us of this period
is, that he broke away from Pulteney, enlisted heartily
under Walpole, and was soon after rewarded with the
office of Vice-Chamberlain. This summary requires
both retrospective and prospective explanation.

At his marriage Lord Hervey's personal and political
interests and feelings were in unison ; his mother, his
brother, and his wife held offices in the Prince's Court,
which was in declared Opposition ; Lord Bristol, too,
was dissatisfied with the Ministry. Pulteney was the
intimate friend both of Hervey and his wife, and shortly
before the time of his breaking with Walpole and
taking the lead of the Opposition, he stood sponsor
to Hervey's eldest dai:^hter. Lords Chesterfield,
Bolingbroke, and Bathurst, Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot,
and latterly Swift, with the ladies of the Prince's
Court, completed a circle at Richmond and Twicken-
ham, very factious, no doubt, against Walpole, but
very agreeable in itself On the death, however, of

17 See post, i. 329; ii. 20,385»

xxxiv LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

Geoi^e I^ when the ascendancy of the Queen had con-
firmed Sir Robert in power, the scene changed, and
Lord Hervey, already, it is evident, a favourite with
her Majesty, naturaUy followed her, as did most of her
Court, into the Ministerial camp, and was gratified, but
certainly not satisfied, with a pension given him, no
doubt instead of a place. On his return fi*om abroad,
however, he was, we shall see, undecided what course
to take, and Walpole and Pulteney seem to have both
bidden for him : a chasm in the Memoirs (almost the
only one that I regret) has deprived us of the details of
this struggle ; but Walpole carried off the prize, and on
the 7th of May, 1730, Lord Hervey received the gold
key of Vice-Chamberlain to the King — Inde tree !

The celebrated party-paper the * Craftsman ' had
been set up in the last year of the late reign to
oppose Walpole, and it now became the vehicle of all
the exasperated animosity of Pulteney and Bolingbroke.
Against this formidable antagonist of the Ministry to
which he now belonged. Lord Hervey drew a sharp
and ready pen in numerous pamphlets, which Horace
Walpole — probably with some partiality to the partisan
of Sir Robert — thought ** equal to any that ever were
toritten'' Some of them have certainly considerable
literary merit, though their subjects are now obsolete;
and one of them — one at least imputed to him — had
consequences very important to his private as well as
his political character. In the first days of 1731 ap-
peared a pamphlet in answer to the * Craftsman,' under
the title of * Sedition and Defamation displayed^* to
which was prefixed a clever and caustic * Dedication to
the Patrons of the Craftsman^ that is, Pulteney and

BIOGBAPHICAL NOTICE. xxxv

Bolingbroke. This, Pulteney attributed to Hervey, and
in a few days published, under the signature of the
Craftsman, * A proper Reply to a late scurrilous lAheV
This Eeply was no doubt thought very pungent in its
day, but it now seems coarse, weak, and even dull;
very much beneath the dignity of a person in Pulte-
ney's position, and very inferior to a brilliant pamphlet
which he soon after published against Walpole himself
This latter pamphlet revealed some coarse expressions
which Walpole in their former intimacy had used to
him against the King when Prince, which so exaspe-
rated his Majesty — not against Walpole, as Pulteney
no doubt expected, but— against himself, that the King
struck his name out of the Privy Council.

Pulteney's ^ Reply' affects to treat Hervey as a
thing below contempt — makes his personal appearance
an excuse for calling him a half-^nan half-woman in the
most indecent terms, and, in short, affords the original
hints for all the insinuations and insults which Pope
afterwards introduced into the famous character of
Sporus. A duel ensued, and certainly, considering
the peculiar nature of the offence, one can hardly
imagine a more justifiable occasion for such an appeal.
Of this event we have the following account in a letter
from Mr. Thomas Pelham to Lord Waldegrave, then
Ambassador at Paris : —

r ** Loiidon, 28th Jan., 1731.

** Lord Hervey sent a message to Mr. Pulteney, desiring to
know whether he wrote the late pamphlet called * TTie Beply * to
that of ' Sedition and Defamation displayed ;' in answer to which
Pulteney said he would not satisfy Lord Hervey till he knew
whether his Lordship was the author of the * Dedication ' to the

xxxvi LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

latter. Accordingly, Lord Hervey sent him word that he
was not: and Mr. Fox, who carried this message, asked
Mr. Pulteney what answer he would give about * The Reply f
to which Mr. Pulteney said, that since Lord Herrey did
not write the ^ Dedication^ he was satisfied. But Fox in-
sisting upon some other answer with relation to ' The JRe^
phfy Pulteney then said that he might tell Lord Hervey
that whether he (Pulteney) was the author of * The Reply '
or not, he was ready to justify and stand by the truth of any
part of it at what time and wherever Lord Hervey pleased.
This last message your Lordship will easily imagine was the
occasion of the duel ; and, accordingly, on Monday last the
25th, at between three and four o'clock, they met in the Upper
St. James's Park,^® behind Arlington Street, with their two
seconds, who were Mr. Fox and Sir J. Rushout. The two
combatants were each of them slightly wounded, but Mr. Pul-
teney had once so much the advantage of Lord Hervey, that he
would have infallibly run my Lord through the body if his foot
had not slipped, and then the seconds took an occasion to part
them. Upon which Mr. Pulteney embraced Lord Hervey, and
expressed a great deal of concern at the accident of their quar-
rel, promising at the same time that he would never personally
attack him again, either with his mouth or his pen. Lord Hervey
made him a bow, without giving him any sort of answer, and
(to use the common expression) thus they parted." — Coxe^ App.

Mr. Pelham, who in this narration professes only to
" give the talk of the town^ as well as he has been able to
collect ity'' records what I suppose must be a mistake in
making Lord Hervey deny the authorship of the Dedica-
tioTij which it seems certain that he wrote. What Lord
Hervey might have denied was the Pamphlet^ which was,
in fact, not his, hut probably Sir William Yonge's ; and
this confusion between the Pamphlet and the Dedication
(which Pulteney himself suspected to have been by dif-

18 Now the Green Park.

BIOQBAPmCAL NOTICE. xxxvii

ferent hands) has hitherto obscured this story, and made
it appear as if this celebrated duel had been fought under
an entire mistake. Coxe says, and has been copied by
subsequent writers, that " it afterwards appeared that
Lord Hervey did not compose this pamphlet, which was
really written by Sir W. Yonge, as he himself confessed
to Lord Hardwicke ; and Pulteney acknowledged his
mistake, and imputed it, without sufficient authority,
to Walpole himself "—(C(?a?e, L 362.) This is not in-
consistent with Lord Hervey's having written the De-
dication ; but Pulteney himself, in his second pamphlet
(before mentioned), charges Walpole with being the
sole author of Defamation Displayed^ and with having
endeavoured to pass it off as " a Noble Lord\" which,
he says, led to the duel ; and he reproaches Walpole
with the mischief that might have ensued from that
mistake — making no distinction (as he had done in
the * Bepli/ ') between the Dedication and the Pamphlet,
and acquitting Lord Hervey of the whole. This would
seem conclusive, even against the strong internal evi-
dence of the Dedication ; but a mai^inal note in the
copy of the pamphlet at Ickworth, apparently in Lord
Hervey's own hand, states that the Dedication was by
him. Now if this was, as I believe, the fact, it seems
that Lord Hervey was the aggressor ; and Pulteney,
in the ^ Reply ^ states, moreover, that this was not
Hervey's first offence. It is indeed true that his attack
was merely political, with as little personality as might
be, and that Pulteney's retort had too large an inter-
mixture of ribaldry and venom ; but in measuring the
blame of such scuffles the question with the world will
always be — as Lord Hervey himself afterwards urged

xxxvm LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS.

in his quarrel with Pope — who struck the first blow ?
and, as far as we can now see, it was Lord Hervey.

But such was not the case in his quarrel with
Pope. Pope had long professed the utmost admiration
and affection for Lady Mary Wortley. Some of his
sweetest verses are in her praise, as the most disgusting
he ever wrote were afterwards pointed at her. Lady
Mary had always been the intimate friend of Lady
Bristol,^' and she was, both hereditarily as it were,
and by taste, from youth to age the friend of Lord
Hervey. We know nothing of the precise state or
cause of the rupture between Pope and Lady Mary,
in which Lord Hervey became implicated. It has
been ascribed to the " rivalry " of the gentlemen "/(w
the good graces of the Lady ;" but I can trace no evi-
dence for this statement, and there is some against it
Spence gives us Lady Mary's own account of the
quarrel thus : —

" I have got fifly or sixty of Mr. Pope's letters by me. You
shall see what a goddess he makes of me in them, though he
makes such a deyil of me in his writmgs afterwards, toitAout
any reason that I know of. I got a third person to ask him
why he had left off visiting me : he answered, negligently, that
he went as often as he used to do. I then got Dr. Arbuthnot
to ask him what Lady Mary had done to him ? He said that
Lady Mary and Lord H. [Hervey] had pressed him once
together — (ancf I do not remember that toe ever were together with
him in our lives) — to write a satire on certain persons ; that he
refused it, and that this had occasioned the breach between us."
^— Spencers Anecdotes^ 31.

It would be now idle to seek for a cause of quarrel

i» To Lady Bristol were addressed some of her most celebrated letters
irom the East.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xxxix

which the parties were, an hundred years ago, unable
or unwilling to explain ; but may it not be sufficiently
accounted for by the jealousies almost inevitable
between persons of such similar and therefore dis-
cordant tastes and tempers, living together in a circle
of tittle-tattle, scandal, and pasquinades ? ^^ It must
be owned," says Lord Chesterfield {CJiaracters)^ "that
Pope was the most irritable of all the genus irritabile
vatum, offended with trifles, and never forgetting or
forgiving them." Pope himself admits that he disconti-
nued his acquaintance with his noble friends ^^ merely
because they both had too much wit for him" He dates
his estrangement from Lord Hervey so early as 1725 ;
and we may easily conceive how much these personal
differences must have been sharpened by political ani-
mosity, when^ in 1727, the new Court discarded its old
Opposition connexions and adopted Walpole.

But, whatever may have been their private feuds,
the first public offence was undoubtedly given by Pope.
In his * Miscellanies * (1727) Lord Hervey is sneered
at in several passages, both covertly and under his ini-
tials. In the first edition of the * Dunciad * (1728) we
find—

^' And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,

Impatient waits till * * [i3m?«y] joins the quire."

These were, however, slight touches ; and though no
one could doubt who was meant, they aflbrded Hervey
no ground of public complaint But towards the close
of 1732 appeared the ^Imitation of the 2nd Satire of
the 1st Book of HoracCy in which Pope attacked Lady
Mary by the name of * SapphOj in the most brutal and
indecent couplet ever printed, and Lord Hervey twice

zl LORD HEEYET'S MEMOIRS.

over by the contemptuous designation of * Lord Fanny.*
Pope, indeed, subsequently denied'® that ^Sappho* and
* Lord Fanny * were meant for Lady Mary or his
Lordship; but this denial, which everybody saw to
be a mean untruth, only put Pope still more in the
wrong.

In retaliation for these attacks there soon appeared a
sharp retort under the title of * Verses to the Imitator of
Horace^* which made a great deal of noise, and were
generally thought to be the joint production of Lady
Mary and Lord Hervey. Lord Wharncliflfe, on the
faith of ^^ finding the poem copied into a book 'verified
by her own hand as written by hery* is inclined to con-
clude that they were hers alone ; and they were adver-
tised, and Pope so quotes them, as being written ^^ by
a Lady of Quality ;" but there is, on the other hand,
some evidence that would lead to a different conclu-
sion. The original edition (in the Ickworth volume)
makes no mention of ^^ a Lady " on the title-page, but
has a manuscript preface and several manuscript cor-
rections and additions, with a new manuscript title-
page, prepared " by the author " for a second edition,
all of which are in Lord Hervey's own hand. This
creates a strong presumption that he was the sole
author, though it is perhaps not altogether conclusive,
and I must own that these " Verses'' are smoother,
keener, and in every way better than any of Lord
Hervey*s single-handed productions — except (if that be
one) the " Answer ** to Hammond before mentioned.

»o See * Letter to a Noble Lord,' November, 1733, in Pope's Works,
vol. ill. p. 395 (Bowles's Edition).

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. xU

I cannot pretend to explain the mystery of those title-
pages ; but thus much appears in my judgment certain,
that the two pieces in connexion with which the Lady
is mentioned, have a marked superiority over Lord
Hervey's other works, both in vigour and polish — and
especially over a piece, avowedly by him alone, on the
same subject as the ^Verses to the Imitator^* and pub-
lished about the same time, entitled, ^ Letter from a
Nobleman at Hampton Court to a Doctor of Divinity.^
To this piece, which has some strong thoughts in rather
rugged metre, the noble author had also made, in the
copy at Ickworth, a manuscript addition of half a dozen
lines, which I think it right to preserve, as they have
not been printed, and as they are a kind of apology for
his, as he says, reluctant share in this controversy : —

" So much for Pope — nor this I would have said,
Had not the spider first his venom shed %
For, ihe first stone 1 ne'er unjustly cast,
But who can blame the hand that throws the last f
And if one common foe the wretch has made
Of all mankind — ^his folly on his head !"

Alas, however, for Lord Hervey, this was not to be
the " last stone ;** and very different both in weight and
impetus was Pope's retort. He in the first instance
replied to Lord Hervey by the celebrated prose * Letter*
before mentioned, " which, " says Johnson, ** though
never sent, is printed amongst his letters, but to a cool
reader of the present time exhibits nothing but tedious
malignity/' I cannot agree with Johnson : he was partial
to the Herveys.** Thomas and Henry, Lord Hervey's

n That is after his acquaintance with Henry, who had married his friend
MisB Aston : before that he had followed in the track of Pope, and in his

VOL. I. d

zlii LORD HERYBY'S MBHOIBS.

younger brothers, were his friends, and in a small way —
but when small things were great to him — ^his benefac-
tors ; and he gratefiiUy told Boswell, " If you call a dog
Hervej/y I shall love him/' He therefore took no great
pains to understand the sly, deep, and complicated sa-
tire of this ^ Letter,' which has seemed to other critics
one of the most remarkable specimens of ironical sar-
casm in our language. From it a patient and intelli-
gent reader may glean every foible, folly, or fault that
truth or scandal ever attached to Lord Hervey, brought
together with an artfiil and polished malignity that may
be odious, but can never, I think, be "tedious/* It
remains, however, a much severer weight on the cha-
racter of Pope than of his antagonist — ^for it is alto-
gether built on the false and mean denial of what
every one knew to be true.

Prudential reasons probably prevented the publication
of this libel, of which the affected civility and smooth
irony would have probably not deceived a legal tribunal;
but Pope took an early opportunity of exhibiting its
essence in a form still more striking, more lasting, more
brilliant, and to himself more safe. This was the cha-
racter of Sporus (in the Epistle to Arbuthnot^ published
at the close of 1734), which, injurious and unjust as it
undoubtedly is, is too large an item in Lord Hervey*s
history to be omitted even from this sketch : —

p. Let Sporus tremble —

A. What ! that thing of silk ?
Sporus 1 that mere white curd of ass's milk ?
Satire or sense, alas ! can Spams feel ?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel ?

* London ' had sneered at '< Hervey'9 jesty" which he afterwards changed
to " Cfcdfo's jett:*

BIOaRAPmCAL NOTICE. xHu

P, Tet let me flap this bug with gilded wit^^
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings 1
Whose buzz the witty and the &ir annoys ;
Tet wit ne'er tastes and beauty ne'er enjoys ;
Ad well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray.
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And as the prompter breathes the puppet squeaks ;
Or at the ear q/*Ev£, familiar toad I
Half froth half venom spits himself abroad,
In pun or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.
His wit all see -saw between that and thisj
Now high, now low, now master up, now «ii**,
Ajid he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing 1 that acting either part,
The trifling head or the corrupted heart.
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board.
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the rabbins have expreas'd,
A cherub's &ce— a reptile aD the rest I
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none can trust.
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust !"

Though the substance and many of the sharpest
points of this bitter invective as well 9S of the prose
' Letter ' were originally taken, as I have said, from
Pulteney's libel, the brilliancy is all the poet's own;
and it is impossible not to admire, however we may
condemn, the art by which acknowledged wit, beauty,
and gentle manners — the Queen's favour — and even a
valetudinary diet, are travestied into the most odious
defects and offences* The only trait perhaps of the
whole that is not either false or overcharged is Her-
vey's love for antithesis^ which Pulteney had already
ridiculed. This turn he seems to have inherited from

d2

xliv LOBB HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS.

Lord Bristol, and as the reader of the Memoirs
will see, it was habitual in both his writing and speak-
ing. His parliamentary speeches were, as Warton
says, very far above ^^ florid impotence; but they
were in favour of the Ministry, and that was suffi-
ciently offensive to Pope." Smollett too, led away, no
doubt, by the satirist, calls his speeches ^^pert mid
frivohuay Those that have been preserved are surely
of a very different character ; and Tindal, a brother
historian, rather reproaches them with being too ^^ grave
and solemn^ But pert speeches, if such they were, and
even the foppery and affectation of a young man of
fashion, are very subordinate offences, while that more
serious defect, which might have been really charged
upon him, and which was strongly hinted at in the un-
published ' Letter' — laxity of moral and religious prin-
ciple— has here altogether — or nearly so — escaped the
censure of the satirist. Was it too fashionable and too
general — or in the eyes of the friend of Bolingbroke
too venial — to be made an object of reproach ?

The poetical war slumbered, as far as we know, for
some years on the part of Hervey, while Pope took
frequently opportunities of insulting both him and
his nearest friends ; particularly in the satire entitled
* 1738,' in which Hervey, Stephen and Henry Fox, and
even the deceased Queen,** were grossly or severely
handled; but at last in 1742 his Lordship produced a
poem entitled, * The Difference between Verbal and
Practical Virtue^ exemplified in some Instances both

^ See the two allusions to the Queen in this poem noticed, post, i. 473,
n 9, and ii. 629, n. 10.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTIGE. xlv

ancient and modem* As this poem was not noticed

in the controversy which arose some years since on the

character of Pope, and as it is now very scarce, the

reader may be glad to see a specimen of the last serious

effort of Lord Hervey's muse. It begins : —

^' What awkward judgments must they make of men
Who think their hearts are pictured by their pen I
Few authors tread the path they reoommend.
Or, when they show the road, pursue the end ;
Few give examples where they give advice,
Or, though they scourge the vicious, shun the vice/'

The ancient instances are Horacey SaUusty and Se-
necOj whose mean personal conduct he contrasts with
the exalted precepts of their writings. The modern
example, and that for whose exposure the piece is evi-
dently written, is Pope — whose delight it is —

'^ To cast a shadow o'er the spotless &me,
Or dye the cheek of innocence with shame ;
To swell the breast of modesty with care,
Or force from beauty's eye a secret tear ;
And, not by decency or honour sway'd,
libel the living and asperse the dead.
Prone, where he ne'er received^ to give offence^
But most averse to merit and to sense :
Base to his foe, but baser to his friend ;
Lying to blame, and sneering to commend :
Then let him boast that honourable crime
Of making those who fear not God, fear him, — *'
When the great honour of that boast is such.
That hornets and mad dogs may boast as much.
Such is th' injustice of his daily theme.
And such the lust that breaks his nightly dream,
That vestal fire of undecaying hate.
Which time's cold tide itself can ne'er abate."

ss ** Tes, I am proud, and must be proud to see

Those not afraid of God (tfraidofme:*—Pope,

xlvi LOBD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS.

This, it must be confessed, is — as to the strength of
the bow, whatever we may think of the venom of the
shaft — impar congressus AehUli.

Qqx^ Warton, Bowles, and indeed every other
writer (except Smollett), make a generous and sub-
stantially a successiul defence of Lord Hervey against
Pope's malevolence; but where did Coxe find that
his Lordship's ^* manners and jigure were highly forbid-
ding f " In youth, we have seen, he was eminently hand-
some; and Pope's lines which so prominently allow
him that quality were published but eight years before
his death. It is true that in 1737, only two years
later, the old Duchess of Marlborough, who had now
taken a mortal aversion to him, both on personal and
political grounds, gives a most unfavourable picture of
both his morals and appearance : —

'* Lord Hervey is at this time always with the Eong and in
vast &YOur. He has certainly parts and wit, but is the most
wretched profligate man that ever was bom, beades ridicu-
lous ; a painted £ace, and not a tooth in his head/' — Opinions.

Lord Hailes, who published the Duchess's Opinions^
subjoins to the foregoing passage this note : —

" Lord Hervey having felt some attacks of epilepsy entered
upon and practised a very strict regimen, and thus stopped the
progress and prevented the effects of that dreadful disease.
His daily food was a small quantity of asses^ milk and a flour
biscuit ; once a toeek he indulged himself with eating an apple :
he used emetics daily. Mr. Pope and he once were fri^ids, but
they quarrelled and persecuted each other with virulent satire.
Pope, knowing the abstemious re^men which Lord Hervey ob-
served, was so ungenerous as to call him ^ a mere cheese curd
of asses' milk.' Lord Hervey used paint to soften his ghastly
appearance. Mr. Pope must have known this also, and there-

BIOGIIA.PHICAL NOTIOB. xlvii

fore it was Unpardonable in him to introduce it into lis oek'
brated portrait" — (^nitms.

It is possible — and I suppose we must take the
sngty Duchess's word for it^— though we might have
hesitated as to the evidence of Pope's poetical epithets
— that to paint his face was one of Lord Hervey's
fopperies, or it may have been practised^ as Lord
Hailes suggests, to soften the traces of a constitutional
infirmity which he was naturally anxious to conceal.
However that may be, there is a portrait of him in the
last years of his life, in which his countenance is still
very handsome, and the very reverse of either ghastly
or forbidding. Lord Hailes's account of his regimen
is an exaggeration. It is true that he was subject to
epilepsy, and in a letter to Stephen Fox, who, having
accompanied him in his sick tour, was no doubt in the
secret, he gives the following description of one of these
attacks : —

«St James's, December 7, 1731.
^^ I have been so very much out of order since I writ last,
that going into the Drawing Room before the King, I was taken
with one of those disorders with the odious name, that you know
happen'd to me once at Lincoln's Inn Fields play-house. I had
just warning enough to catch hold of somebody (God knows who)
in one side of the lane made for the King to pass through, and
stopped till he was gone by. I recovered my senses enough im-
mediately to say, when people came up to me asking what was
the matter, that it was a cramp took me suddenly in my leg,
and (that cramp excepted) that I was as well as ever I was in
my life. I was far from it ; for I saw everything in a mist, was
so ^ddy I could hardly walk, which I said was owing to my
cramp not quite gone off. To avoid giving suspicion t stayed
and talked with people about ten minutes, and then (the Duke
of Grafton being there to light the Eang) came down to my

xlviii LORD HERVBY'8 MEMOIRS.

lodpngs, where * * * I am now far from well, but better, and
prodigiously pleased, since I was to feel this disorder, that I con-
trived to do it £( TtTim de tout U mande, Mr. Churchill was
close by me when it happened, and takes it all for a cramp.
The King, Queen, &c. inquired about my cramp this morning,
and laughed at it ; I joined in the laugh, said how foolish an
accident it was, and so it has passed off; nobody but Lady Her-
vey (from whom it was impossible to conceal what followed)
knows anything of it."

For this "disorder** he naturally adopted the
remedy of a strict regimen, which, though not quite so
strange as stated by Lord Hailes, is sufficiently curious.
He writes to his physician, Dr. Cheyne, the celebrated
advocate for vegetable diet : —

« St James's, December 9, 1732.
" * * To let you know that I continue one of your most
pious Yotaries, and to tell you the method I am in. Li the first
place, I neyer take wine nor malt drink, or any liquid but water
and milk-tea; in the next, I eat no meat but the whitest,
youngest, and tenderest, nine times in ten nothing but chicken,
and neyer more than the quantity of a small one at a meal. I
seldom eat any supper, but if any, nothing absolutely but bread
and water ; two days in the week I eat no flesh ; my break&st
is dry biscuit not sweet, and green tea ; I have left off butter
as bilious ; I eat no salt, nor any sauce but bread sauce. I take
a Scotch pill once a week, and thirty grains of Indian root when
my stomach is loaded, my head giddy, and my appetite gone.
I have not bragged of the persecutions I suffer in this cause ;
but the attacks made upon me by ignorance, impertinence, and
gluttony are innumerable and incredible.''

This really was a heroic sacrifice to Hygaeia ; but he
had to undergo, as we have seen, a still more grievous
martyrdom for his abstinence, in Pope*s immortal
satire.

On the Queen's death he displayed his sorrow and

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, xlix

his scholarship in a long and highly eulogistic epitaph
in Latin and in English. In his Letter to the Doctor
of Divinity he pleads that he

" long
Had taken leave of Greek or Latin song,
All that I learned from Dr. Friend at school,
By Gradus, Lexicon, or grammar rule,
Has quite deserted this poor John- Trot head.
And left plain native English in its stead."

This Pope, in his reply, affected to helieve, and ridi-
culed very successfully his Lordship's confessed want of
scholarship — hut in truth few men had retained more
of^ at least, Latinity. He used to correspond in Latin
with Henry Fox; his Epitaphium Reginm Carolinoe
was approved by very competent scholars; and his
correspondence with Dr. Middleton is creditable to
his classical learning.

It was, I fear, a community of scepticism that pro-
duced, about 1732, an intimate acquaintance and lite-
rary correspondence between Lord Hervey and Dr.
Middleton. In the early part of 1735, Hervey having
proposed to Middleton some questions on the mode of
electing the Soman Senate, a regular discussion of that
obscure and curious question ensued between them.
Middleton published his share of the correspondence
in 1747; but Lord Bristol would not permit him
to include Lord Hervey's letters. The complete
correspondence was, however, printed in 1778, from
which it appears that Hervey showed himself by
no means Middleton's inferior in the classical studies
which had occupied so large a portion of the Doctor's
life. Lord Hervey exerted himself with large success

1 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

to procure subscribers to Middleton's ' Life of Cicero ;* •*

and Middleton showed his gratitude by dedicating the

work to his patron in a more laboured panegyric than

Hervey's own taste approved, and for which Pope

gladly hitched them both into the fourth book of the

Dunciad : —

" Narcissus, praised with all a parson's power,
Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower."

This sarcasm was the last blow of this celebrated con-
flict, which does little honour to Pope's taste or truth,
and not much more to Lord Hervey*s talents or temper.

We must now return to his political life. The
Memoirs will tell all that is known of it up to the
Queen s death. He had been from the outlet dis*
satisfied with his household place ; and the loss of Her
who had distinguished him with peculiar favour, and
to whom he was sincerely attached, rendered it addi-
tionally irksome, and he pressed Walpole for a change
of office, but without any immediate effect Walpole
felt the justice of his claim, and had resolved to bring
him into the Cabinet ; but was met by a long and
vigorous opposition from the Duke of Newcastle, who
even threatened to resign rather than submit to so
incompatible a colleague.

During this suspense, I find from the private corre-
spondence that he was assiduous in his attendance in
the House of Lords, and we have in the Pari. Hist
two or three of his speeches on the discussions with

** It has been said (Park's Nobie Authors^ iv. 186), on the very loose
authority of Seward's Anecdotes, vol. t., p. 78, that the extracts from
Cicero's Orations in Middleton's Life were translated by Lord Hervey ;
but his correspondence with Middleton (preserved at Ickworth) com-
pletely disproves any such co-operation : so do Lady Hervey's Letters.

BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICB. U

Spain. On one of those occasions, 2nd May, 1738, ^^a
party of Amazons," as Lady Mary W. Montagu calls
them, headed by the Duchesses of Queensberry and
Ancaster, stormed the House of Lords, and disturbed
the debate, ^^not only by smiles and winks, but by
noisy laughs and apparent contempts, which is sup-
posed," she adds, "to be the true reason why poor
Lord Hervey spoke so miserably/'

At length, however, Walpole overcame the difficul-
ties that had delayed his advancement, and in April,
1740, Lord Godolphin was made Constable of the
Tower, and Lord Hervey Privy Seal in his room.

A few memoranda made on his entrance into this
new office will be found in a supplemental chapter to
the Memoirs ; but they are so limited as to have little
other value than as a specimen of how Cabinet business
was transacted.

It is much to be regretted that Lord Hervey's papers
afford us no ftirther insight into either his personal
history or the public transactions during the two im-
portant years that preceded Walpole's defeat. The
ministerial and parliamentary intrigues of that period
would have been exceedingly curious and probably im-
portant— there is no part of Walpole's history with
which we are now so imperfectly acquainted as his de-
cline and fall.

On the assembling of a new Parliament in December,
1741, Sir Robert found himself in repeated minorities,
and was forced reluctantly to retire. On the 9th of
February he was created Earl of Orford, and on the
11th resigned. Horace Walpole attributes his fall to
the treachery of his colleagues, and particularly of New-

Hi LORD HEBVEY'S MEMOIRS.

castle ; and we shall see in the following pages evidence
enough that Sir Kobert and the Duke were latterly on
very uncomfortable terms ; but Walpole really fell be-
cause, from age, indolence, and a too long possession of
power, he was ripe for falling. He would, however,
have probably fallen somewhat later, if the heir-appa-
rent had not " lent his arm to shake the tree."

Lord Hervey had no inclination, it appears, to fol-
low him in his retreat; and two long letters to his
father (in the supplemental chapter) will best explain
the circumstances under which — after a long and vigor-
ous struggle either to keep the Privy Seal or to obtain
some satisfactory equivalent or compensation for it —
he was, on the 12th of July, at length dismissed, and
replaced by Lord Gower — who, from being almost a
Jacobite, had joined the Whig coalition, to the great
scandal of all the Tories and the mortification of at
least one of the Whigs.

This reluctance to share the fate of his patron must
have seriously oflfended him ; and we cannot wonder
that Horace Walpole*s Reminiscences of this period,
derived from Sir Robert, are very unfavourable to
Lord Hervey.

" The memorable Lord Hervey had dedicated himself to the
Queen, and certainly towards her death had gained great
ascendance with her. She had made him Privy Seal ; and as
he took care to keep as well with Sir Robert Walpole, no man
stood in a more prosperous Hght. But Lord Hervey, who
had handled all the weapons of a Court, had also made a deep
impression on the heart of the virtuous Princess Caroline ; and
as there was a mortal antipathy between the Duke of Grafton
and Lord Hervey, the Court was often on the point of being
disturbed by the enmity of the favourites of the two Princesses.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. liii

The death of the Queen deeply afPected her daughter Caro-
line ; and the change of the ministry four years after dislodged
Lord Hervey, whom, for the Queen's sake, the King would have
saved, and who very ungratefully satirized the King in a bal-
lad, as if he had sacrificed him voluntarily. Disappointment,
rage, and a distempered constitution carried Lord Hervey off,
and overwhelmed his Princess : she never appeared in public
after the Queen's death, and being dreadfully afflicted with the
rheumatism never stirred out of her apartment, and rejoiced at
her own dissolution some years before her father." — Reminis.

There is here some inaccuracy. Lord Hervey was
not, as we have seen, made Privy Seal by the QueeUj
nor till between two and three years after her death ;
nor does it seem that he handled oM the weapons
of a courtier with any great advantage to himself,
as he continued, notwithstanding his high favour and
very distinguished talents, for ten years in the same
very subordinate station in which he had begun. The

* Ballad * alluded to is to be found, under the title of

* The Patriots are come^ in * The Foundling Hospital
for TF?^,' and was reprinted by Lord Dover in
H. Walpole's Letters to Mann, i. 245. Walpole at
first doubted from the negligence of the style whether
it was Lord Hervey's ; but it certainly was. It rallies
the new and old courtiers very much in the spirit in
which his pamphlets deal with them. The most ori-
ginal line in it is where Carteret is made to say of
" weathercock Pulteney " that —

'* To cheat such a colleague demands all my arts ;
For, though he*s a fool, he's a fool of great parts '*

The ingratitude to the King on this occasion was not
very serious ; for in truth his Majesty is treated in the
ballad with hardly more freedom than in Lord Her-

liv LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS.

vey's direct expostulations pending the negotiation for
his removal. It is, however, true that Lord Hervey
blames him unjustly both in the correspondence and
the ballad for a compliance with circumstances which
he had no power to resist.

I do not find any ground, beyond Walpole's asser-
tion, for imputing his death in any degree to " rage
and disappointment!* For many years his health was
so bad, that the only wonder is that he had lasted so
long. He was very ill at the time of Walpole's fall,
and the crisis seems rather to have revived him. In
the short interval between his dismissal and his death
he distinguished himself by exertions both in Parlia-
ment and in the press, equal, if not superior, to any he
had ever made. Tkey might be attributed to rage and
disappointment, but not his death.

The statement as to the Princess Caroline will be
elucidated by several passages in the Memoirs; but
it is proper to observe that she survived her mother
twenty years, and Lord Hervey fourteen ; that Wal-
pole himself — who treats the Princess Amelia, in after-
life a personal friend of his own, with so much freedom
— negatives the suspicion of any personal impropriety in
the attachment of the amiable and ^'virtuous*' Caroline
to the favourite of her mother, and this evidence seems
morally confirmed by the continued affection which Lady
Hervey showed for the Princess after her Lord's death.

Of his private life after the change of ministry I
find no traces^ but in some letters to his old friend and
associate Lady Mary Wortley,** then at Avignon : —

«* We owe their preserTation, no doubt, to an incident related by Lady
Louisa Stuart. '< Lord Hervey dying a few years after Lady Mary settled

BJOOEAFHICAL NOTICB. Iv

** Kensington Gravel Pits, May 20 (31), 1742.
^' I must now (since you take so firiendly a part in what con-
cerns me) ^ve you a short account of my natural and political
health ; and when I say I am still alive, and still Privy Seal, it
is all I can say for the pleasure of one or the honour of the
other; for since Lord Orford*s retiring, as I am too proud to
offer my service and friendship where I am not sure they will
be accepted of, and too inconsiderable to have those advances
made to me (though I never forgot or failed to return any obli-
gation I ever received), so I remain as illustrious a nothing in
this office as ever filled it dnce it was erected. There is
one benefit, however, I enjoy from this loss of my Court in-
terest, which is, that all those flies which were bu2zii^ about
me in the smnmer sunshine and full ripeness of that interest,
have all deserted its autumnal decay, and, from thinking my
natural death not far off and my political demise already over,
have all forgot the deathbed of the one and the coffin of the
other. I must let you know, too, that since the death of my

abroad, his eldest son (George Lord Hervej) sealed up and sent her her
letters with an assurance that none of them bad been opened. She wrote him
a letter of thanks for his honourable conduct, adding that ' she could almost
regret he had not glanced his eye over a correspondence which would have
shown him what so joung a man might perhaps be inclined to doubt — the
possibility of a long and steady friendship subsisting between two persons
of different sexes without the least mixture of love.' " ( Works, i. 66.) I
presume that Lady Mary at the same time returned a considerable number of
Lord Hervey's which are at Ickworth, and which generally are (as might
be expected from letters so preserved and so returned) of the same platonic
character — but they belong only to the last fourteen years of an acquaint-
ance that had lasted almost twice as long, and there are here and Uiere a
few phrases of a freer kind. ^ In a letter of his (1787), in answer to one of
hers in which she seems to have complained that she was too old to inspire a
passion, he, after a compliment to her charms more gallant than decorous,
goes on to say : '* I should think anybody a great fool that said he liked
spring better than summer merely because it is further from autumn, or
that they loved green fruit better than ripe only because it was further from
being rotten. I ever did, and believe ever shall, like woman best

Just in the noon of life<^thoae golden days
When the mind ripens ere the form decays."

Lady Mary was frill ripe, being then forty-seven — six years older than he.
The lines are from a poem of his own.

Ivi LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS.

mother*' and my mother-in-law, my circumstances are so easy,
or rather indeed affluent, that with regard to my pecuniary in-
terest in being in or out, I am as indifferent as I can be whether
my hat is laced or plain ; and with regard to any ambitious
view, almost as indifferent from age and infirmity about the
honour of the one or the look of the other."

These philosophical and self-denying professions are
somewhat inconsistent with the strenuous endeavours
he was then making to retain oflSce, and the deep re-
sentment which he showed at the loss of it

. Smollett says that " when Lord Hervey and Lord
Gower changed places they changed principles. The
first was hardened into a sturdy patriot; the other
suppled into an obsequious courtier." Lord Hervey
immediately took a foremost place in the new Opposi-
tion, and never, it seems, spoke better nor was better
heard. He opposed the New Gin Act in several
speeches, which had a considerable effect, and were
separately printed ; and Walpole tells us that on the
31st March, 1743, he ^^ spoke for an hour and a
half, with the greatest applause, against the Hano-
verians." He wrote also two able pamphlets, ^ Mis-
ceUaneous Thoughts on the present Posture 'of Foreign
and Domestic Affairs ' and * The Question stated vnth
regard to our Army in Flanders.^ The first is a very
able exposure of the men and measures of the new
administration, and even afler this lapse of time may
be still read with interest.

But these were his last efforts. On the 15th April,
1743, he writes to Lady Mary: —

86 Lady Bristol died Ist May, 1741.

BIOGRA.PHICAL NOTICE. Ivii

** St James's Square.
" I have been confined these three weeks by a feye^, which
is a sort of annual tax my detestable constitution pays to our
detestable climate at the return of every ^ring ; it is now much
abated, though not quite gone off. I wrote to yoTu about ^
month ago, to tell you of my daughter's*' toarriage to the
Duchess of Buckingham's grandson ; I gftve h^ but 8000/.,
for which ^e has 1200?. per annum jointture, and 'ttie other
settlements in proportion. The Duchess of Buckinghlim is
since dead, by which my son-in-lbw is come into a great inherit-
ance. She has left me Buckingham House with all the ftyni-
ture and all her plate for my life, but I am so well lodged where
I am that I have no thoughts of removing. AdieU ! my head
is still so weak that it turns round with what I have written. I
will write again when I grow stronger. The public afiau*8 are
in a strange posture ; and I believe you know as much of them
where you are, and what we would be at, as any minister in the
cabinet. I am sure t know no more than if I had been born an
idiot*'

The following is the last letter of this correspond-
ence, and, judging by the date as well as by the feeble-
ness and tremor of the hand, was evidently one of the
last he ever wrote : —

** Ickworth Park, June 18, 1743.

^ The last stages of an infirm life are filthy roads, and like
all other roads I find the farther one goes from the capital the
more tedious the miles grow and the more rough and disagree-
able the way. I know of no turnpikes to mend them; medi-
cine pretends to be such, but doctors who have the management
of it, like the commissioners for most other timipikes, seldom
execute what they undertake : they only put the toll of the poor
cheated passenger m their pockets^ and leave every jolt at least
as bad as they found it, if not wotse. ' May all your ways (as
Solomon says of wisdom) be ways of pleasantness, and -all your

^ Lei>el], his eldest daughter, married to Mr. Constantine Phipps, after-
wards Lord Mulgrave: *'a fine black girl," says H. Walpole, *'but as
masculine as her father ought to he.^-^Lett, 7 January, 1742.

VOL. I. e

Iviii LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS.

paths peace ;' and when your dissolution must come, may it
be like that of your lucky workman." Adieu ! "

On the 8th August, 1743, he died ; and his death
was thus recorded iu the * London Magazine :* —

" Died. — The Right Honourable John Lord Henrey, late
Lord Priyy Seal, and eldest son of the Earl of Bristol; a
famous speaker in Parliament under the late administration
and in the Oppoation to the present."

With regard to one who deals so freely witii the
actions and motives of others, and who is likely to
become an historical authority, I have thought it my
duty and have endeavoured to bring before my readers^
with perfect impartiality, all the circumstances that
seemed most likely to guide them to a true appreciation
of his own character — I have submitted to them the
grounds upon which any opinion of mine could be
formed, and I shall therefore not further venture to
anticipate their judgment of the man, than to remind
them that almost all we know of him has been trans-
mitted by the ablest and bitterest personal and political
enemies, whose charges are obviously and assuredly
liable to large abatements; while on the other side
we have the accidental and less detailed, but infi-
nitely more important, evidence of the undeviating
approbation and affection of his excellent father, and
the fond and long-enduring attachment to his person
and his memory of his admirable wife.

Lord Bristol survived this deeply-felt loss to the 20th
January, 1751 ; and Lady Hervey to the 2nd Septem*
ber, 1768.

S9 Lftdy Mary was altering an old mill near Avignon into a kind of
Belvedere^ and I suppose one of her workmen had died in some enyiable
way.

PREFATORY NOTICE. lix

It is now necessary to add a few words upon the
Memoirs themselves.

Lord Hervey himself fairly admits that impartiality
in such cases as his is not to be expected, and he jus-
tifies that confession to its iuUest extent ; but though
we see that his colouring may be capricious and exag-
gerated— no one can feel the least hesitation as to the
substantial and, as to mere facts, the minute accuracy of
his narrative. He may, and I have no doubt too often
does, impute a wrong motive to an act, or a wrong mean-
ing to a speech ; but we can have no doubt that the act
or the speech themselves are related as he saw and heard
them : and there are many indications that the greater
part was written from day to day as the events occurred.

I know of no such near and intimate picture of the
interior of a court ; no other memoirs that I have ever
read bring us so immediately, so actually into not
merely the presence, but the company of the personages
of the royal circle. Lord Hervey is, may I venture
to say, almost the Boswell of George II. and Queen
Caroline— but Boswell without his good nature. He
seems to have taken — perhaps under the influence of
that " wretched health " of which he so frequently com-
plained— a morbid view of mankind, and to have had
little of the milk of human kindness in his temper.

In a * Satire ' of his, * after the manner of Persius'
in Dodsleys Collection^ we find the commonplace in-
vectives against mankind, sharpened with something
of more personal misanthropy : —

'^ Mankind I know, their nature and their art,
Their vice their own, their virtue but a part
111 played so oil, that all the cheat can tell,
And dangerous only when 'tis acted well."

e2

Ix LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIKS.

And, after a lowg tirade in this style, he adds : —

" To such reflections when I turn my mind,
/ loathe my being^ and abhor mankind,**

Andy in feet, whether in his jeux d'e^mt, his graver
verses^ his pamphlets, or his memoirs, satire — perhaps
I might say detraction — seems to have been, as with
Horace Walpole, the natural bias of his mind. There
is, I think, in all his writings, no one of whom he
speaks unifoirmly and heartily weU, or to whom he is
willing to allow a good motive for anything they say or
do, but his father and the Princess Caroline. It must
be owned few others of his personages deserved it so
well: but the result is that all his portraits, not ex-
\cepting even his own^ are of the SpagnoUtto school.

A more impartial painter might, without concealing
or e:9:te]aiiLating the prejudices, frailties, or faults of
George II.> have allowed him honour, honesty, troth,
good iotentions^ and substantial good sense. I do not
mean to say that Lord Hervey deviates in any parti*
cular from truth, or evea exaggerates the King's de-
fects ; but the sketches of his Majesty's character which
we have by Lords Chesterfield and Waldegrave and
Lady M. W. Montagu, all close and certainly not par-
tial; observers, seem to prove that Lord Hervey had a
strong personal dislike to the King, and has done
scanty justice to his good qualities.

I also cannot but think that, had he not been so
deeply prejudiced against Frederick Prince of Wales,
the character of the Queen — the person whom of all
others he seems disposed to treat most favourably —
would have appeared in more amiable colours. Lord
Hervey gives us (may I not say ?) an odious and un-

PRBFATORT NOTICE. Ixi

Bfttural picture of the animosity of a mother against
her 90JXf without explaining in any way its original
eause^ and often^ I thinks omittii;^, perhaps disguising,
scmie recurrencie of maternal feeling. In what way
Frinoe Frederick had at first (and eye% as it seems,
before he caffie to England) alienated the affection of
hk parents^ no one has yet guessed ; and these Memoirs^
which so strongly exhibit the animosity, afford (coiot-
trary to Loird Hailes's expectation) nothing like a suf-
&eient reason for it After he came to England, and
£^1 koAo the hands of the Opposition, we see abuzulant
causes of estrangement, and yet even then not enou^
to justify such extreme resentment aa the Memoirs
ascribe, and. no doubt truly, to the parents^ There
is a cireumstanee, however, which mray have iinfitieneed
the bter stages of the quarrel,, which Ijord Hervey
does not notice^ and to which, but for his silence, I
should be inclined to attribute some influence.

There was published in the year 1735 a small volume
called * HUtaire du Prinee Titi: A[ll€gorie] R[oyale2-'
Two translations of it, under the title of * The History
of Prince Titiy a royal aUegory^ in three parts : with an
Essay on Allegorical Writing^ and a Key^ by the Hon.
Mrs. Stanieyj' were advertised in February, 1736.
In this work (as is stated in the last edition of Bos-
well's Johnson, p. 461, n. 4), "amidst the pnerility and
nonsense of a very stupid fairy tale, it is clear enough
that, under the names of Prince Titi, King Gingv£ty and
Queen Tripasse^ are meant Prince Frederick, George II.,.
and Queen Caroline;" and to this I may add that
the title Allegorie Boyale and portraits, not to be mis-
taken,, of the two Walpoles** as ministers of Ginguety

** For instance, the following^ destfription of old Horace might pass for a-

Ixii LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS.

and allusions to the younger brother, and even to the
important secret of the design of placing him on
the throne,*^ leave no doubt as to what was meant
— wherever there is any meaning. Those acquainted
with the lingua balatronicOj or vulgar dictionary of
Prance, know that the application of the term Gin-
guet to the King and of Tripasse to the Queen were
gross personal insults, and, from a combination of cir-
cumstances, peculiarly so to the Queen.*^ The French
author to whom this work is attributed, one Themiseul
de St. Hyacinthe, was what is called a bookseller's
hack, and it is known that he spent the couple of years
immediately preceding the publication in London,
where, no doubt, this absurd but offensive romance was
concocted. I know of no copy in England of the origi-
nal French but one in the British Museum, and that is
of only the first of three parts.^* My best diligence

translation of what Lord Hervej says of him, post, i. 324 : — *' On chargea
de cet ambassade le fr^re du Premier Ministre. Ce fr^re ^toit un ^happ^
de paysan. II avoit ^t^ employ^ en diffgrens n^ociatious par le credit du
Ministre ; mais il n'avoit fait qu'ajouter k sa rusticitt^ naturelle Tarroganoe
que donnent les grandes places. II faisoit le gausseur et le diseur de bon
mots. Ce n*^toient que des grossi^ret^ qu*on lui passoit k causes de ses
emplois, et que ne servoient qu'k rendre sa personne plus m^prisable,"

80 «« La Reine €tait ddsesp^r^e de voir qu'elle n'osait tenter de faire
pubiiquement declarer Titi d^u de ses droits k la couronne pour la faire
passer sur la tetc de son fr^re cadet quoique Facte en fut formellement
dressi*^ See the explanation of this passage posty ii. 417.

81 Ginguet means, in its different applications, sour, short, or shabby.
Tripasse I can only venture to explain by saying that it is equivalent to
the coarsest term that Prince Henry gives, in one of the tavern scenes
(1 Hen. IV. ii. 4), to the obesity of Falstaff.

s^ There is a perfect copy in the national library in Paris ; and the
whole of this tedious and nearly unintelligible stuff is reprinted, to the
extent of six or seven hundred octavo pages, in the Cabinet des Fees (Paris,
1784-6) under the notion that St. Hyacinthe's work was really meant
for a fairy tale, and it has been abridged in at least one later collection
into about thirty pages, containing all of the original which has any resem-
blance to a Fairy tale. I know not whether there ever was any genuine
child's story, under the title of Prince Titi, on which Prince Frederick or

PREFATORY NOTICE. Ixiii

has not been able to find either of the English trans-
lations, and I am therefore inclined to suspect the
whole were bought up. We are told {Park's ' Noble
Authors^' i. 171) that * MS. Memoirs of his own
Time^ written by Prince Frederick, under the name
of Prince Titi — perhaps the original of the work before
published, or a continuation or amplification of it —
were, after the Prince's death, given up by the exe-
cutors of Ralph, his secretary, to the Princess-Dow-
ager. But whatever the manuscript may have been,
it is certain that the printed book exists ; and if the
King — and above all the Queen — knew of it (and can
we doubt that they did ?), they must have resented
in the highest degree a libel, of which the " stupidity
and childish absurdity " would not, to them at least,
have counterbalanced its indecency and insult. I am
surprised at finding no allusion whatsoever to this work
in Lord Hervey's Memoirs ; for I should have supposed
that he — curious in literary scandal — must have known
it. He may perhaps have had some special motive for
not alluding to it ; or perhaps his notice of it may have
occurred in one of the passages relating to the dissen-
sions of the Royal Family which have been destroyed.
AU this, however, I submit to my readers' judgment,
as the best — though still a very unsatisfactory — con-
jecture I can make on this mysterious subject.

In another point also these Memoirs give an impres-
sion as to Queen Caroline very injurious to her cha-

St. Hyacinthe embroidered the AUegorie Royale. I have not diacovered
any. It ia observable that when the editor of the Cabinet des Fies adopted
this as a fairy tale, he changed the oifensive name given in the original to
the Queen from Tiipaue to Tt-ipatte^ and the subsequent editor omitted the
. name altogether.

Ixiv LORD HERVEY'S MEMOmS.

racter — and which, if truth is ever to be veiled, might
have been spared on this occasion. The general fact is
from many other sources too notorious, but the details
are odious. The motive which Lord Hervey, Horace
Walpole, and Lord Chancellor King suggest for the
Queen's complaisance— that she did it to preserve her
power over her husband — would be, in truth, the reverae
of an excuse. But may not a less selfish motive be sug-
gested ? What could she have done ? The immoralities
of kings have been always too leniently treated in public
opinion; and in the precarious possession which the
Hanoverian family were thought to have of the throne
until the failure of the rebellion of 1745— could the
Queen have prudently or safely taken measures of
resistance, which must have at last ended in separation
or divorce, or at least a scandal great enough, perhaps,
to have overthrown her dynasty ; and in such a course
herpruderffj as it might have been called, would pro-
bably have met little sympathy in those dissolute times.
But even in this case we must regret that she had not
devoured her own humiliation and sorrow in absolute
silence, and submitted discreetly, and without con-
fidants, to what she could not effectually resist. But
neither the selfish motives imputed by former writers,
nor the extenuating circumstance of eapedienct/ which I
thus venture to suggest, can in any degree excuse the
indulgence and even encouragement given, as we shall
see, on her death-bed to the King's vices ; and we are
forced, on the whole, to conclude that moral delicacy
as well as Christian duty must have had very little hold
on either her mind or heart. I have ventured to say
{postj vol. ii. p. 528) that " she had read and argued

PREFATORY NOTICE. Ixv

herself into a very low and cold species of Christian-
ity f but Lord Chesterfield (who, however, personally
disliked her) goes rather farther, and says, — ** After
puzzling herself with all the whimsies and fantastical
speculations of different sects, she fixed herself ulti-
mately in deism — believing in a future state. Upon
the whole the agreeable woman was liked by most
people, while the Queen was neither esteemed, beloved,
nor trusted by any one but the Kijig/'

In the general aspect of the Memoirs, the first thing
that will strike every reader conversant with the his-
tory of the time is, their extraordinary coincidence
with and confirmation of Horace Walpole's Reminis--
cenceSf Letters, and Memoirs. I have long balanced
on the question whether Walpole had seen these Me-
moirs. We are told by Mr. Bowles that Mr. Hans
Stanley had read them. This is very probable. Mr.
Stanley was a particular friend of Lady Hervey's,
but not more so than Walpole ; and I do not think
she would have refiised the son of Sir Robert an
indulgence which she allowed to Mr. Stanley ; parti-
cularly as she must certainly have contributed to the
^ Royal and Noble Authors* the list of Lord Hervey's
works in which the Memoirs are mentioned. It is
also to be remarked that the anecdotes of these Me-
moirs and the Reminiscences are so frequently iden-
tical, or differing only by such slight variations, as to
create a strong impression that they must have been
derived from the same source. On the other hand,
it must be recollected that Horace professes to have
heard all those matters from Sir Robert — from whom
VOL. I. /

Ixvi LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS,

also Lord Hervey heard the most of what he did not
himself see and to whom he repeated all that he had
in Sir-Robert's absence observed ; and there are some
instances in which the narratives differ, without contra-
dicting each other, in circumstances which could hardly
have varied if Horace had been copying Hervey. But
whichever way our opinions may incline upon this
point, the result must be to confer on Walpole's
anecdotes much more credit for authenticity and
accuracy than they have hitherto had. I for one must
confess, that most of my former doubts of Walpole*s
accuracy have been entirely removed by Lord Hervey*s
Memoirs ; and that, on the other hand, there are some
things in the Memoirs which I should have deemed
incredible, if we had not been in some measure prepared
for them by the previous revelations of Walpole.

Of my own small share in the following pages I have
little to say. My notes may to different readers appear
too many, or too few, or not of the right sort ; but they
are such as I thought might be convenient to an
ordinary reader, and as I myself would have been glad
to find in a publication of this kind — errors of course
excepted, of which I fear there may be more than I
have corrected in the errata. I have not deemed it
my duty to excuse, controvert, or enforce my author's
statements or opinions, though I hope I shall be for-
given for having in a few special instances ventured to
point out a mistake or endeavoured to correct an
injustice ; but, as a general rule, I have attempted illus-
tration rather than comment.

J. W. C.

^vUMgrapK of Lordb Htrvey
Fatrb of a, letter to his Mother.

t,rA^ 9 t^t^^yr^ yru^ ^^l^ / -(^ ''^^^

7^ Mm.

SOME MATERIALS

TOWABDfl

MEMOIKS OF THE REIGN

KING GEORaE THE SECOND.

CHAPTER L

Introduction-Estate and Views of Parties at the death of George I. : Whigs,
Tories, Hanoverians, Jacobites— Characters of Pultoney, Bolingbrokc,
Walpole, and Wyndham.

Boasting of intelligence and professing impartiality are
such worn-out prefaces to writings of this kind, that I
shall not trouble my readers nor myself with any very
long exordium upon these topics ; all I shall say for my
intelligence is, that I was lodged all the year round in
the Courty^ during the greater part of these times con-
cerning which I write ; and as nobody attended more
constantly in public^ or had more frequent access at
private hours to all the inhabitants, I must have been
deaf and blind not to have heard and seen several little
particularities which must necessarily be unknown to
such of my contemporaries as were only acquainted

1 He means, that while most of the royal household waited periodically^
ki$ attendance was constant. The apartments in the Palaces assigned to the
members of the Household were called lodgings,

VOL. I. B

2 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. I.

with the chief people of this Court in the theatrical
pageantry of their public characters, and never saw
them when that mask of constraint and hypocrisy, es-
sential to their stations, was enough thrown off for some
natural features to appear.

As to my being partial, whatever professions I make
to disclaim it can be of no weight, since whoever is so
must always be it, either without knowing or without
owning it To confess it would be to defeat the purpose
for which they are so. But as it is generally flattery
or interest which makes people either partial or dis-
honest in their reports, I am certainly under neither of
these influences, as it will be impossible for me to pub-
lish these memoirs whilst I live, and consequently I
should gain no advantage from my hostility nor reap
any reward for my flattery. Those who expect I should
be very choice in my language or methodical in my
arrangement, will be extremely mistaken, for I seek
rather to please people's curiosity 4^an to promote my
own reputation ; to inform rather than to be praised ;
and shall set things of public and of private, natimial and
personal, foreign and domestic concern, promiscuously
down just as tkey occur, without tsx^ubling myself about
the accuracy of ibe style in which I relate tliem, or the
chronological exactness in which I range them.

The things that might be commonly known I shall
conclude too are so, and may (lierefore perhaps often
neglect reciting what is as public as the contents of a
gazette, though it might be thought necessary to illus-
trate the accounts I shall give of more private trans-
actions, and connect little incidents less likely to be in-
serted in all other records of Hiis reign.

1737. INTRODTJCrnON. 8

As to the disagreeable egotisms with which almost
all memoir-writers so tiresomely abound, I shall endea-
vour to steer as clear of them as I can, and whenever I
must give into them, I shall have recourse to the old
refiige of speaking always of myself in the (ihird person^
in order to make them less glaring, and to prevent the
natural imputation of pursuing the thread of my history
of others, only from a foolish vanity and impertinent
desire of troubling the world with my own, which, in-
deed, would be of as little use to me as to my readers,
and conduce no more to my profit than to their enter-
tainment I leave 'those ecclesiastical heroes of their
own romances — De Retz and Burnet — to aim at that
useless imaginary glory of being thought to influence
every considerable event they relate ; and I very freely
declare that my part in this drama was only that of the
Chorus s in the ancient plays, who, by constantly being
on the stage, saw everything tliat was done, and made
their own comments upon tlie scene, without mixing
in the action or making any considerable figure in the
performance.

Thus much I thought it right to say with regard to
what I propose in undertaking this work and the man-
ner in which I intend to pursue it; and as fiictions and
party have in all ages been the principal engine in all
governments, and as tibey are generally of most force
where tlie state is most free, I think it will not be im-
proper to add to this exordium a short account of- the
factions and pqrties subsisting in England at the era I
have chosen for the commencement of these memoirs.

B 2

LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. I.

Whig and Tory had been the denominations by
which men opposite in their political views had distin-
guished themselves for many years and through many
reigns. Those who were called Whigs had been in
power from the first accession of the Hanover Family
to the Crown ; but the original principles on which both
these parties were said to act, altered so insensibly in
the persons who bore the names, by the long prosperity
of the one, and the adversity of the other, that those
who called themselves Whigs arbitrarily gave the tide of
Tory to every one who opposed the measures of the
administration, or whom they had a mind to make dis-
agreeable at Court; whilst the Tories (with more jus-
tice) reproached the Whigs with acting on those very
principles and pushing those very points which, to
ingratiate tiiemselves with the people and to assume a
popular character, tiiey had at first set themselves up to
explode and abuse.

The two chief characteristics of the Tories originally
were the maintenance of the prerogative of the Crown
and the dignity of the Church ; bolii which they pre-
tended were now become, if not by profession, at least
by practice, much more the care of the Whigs. Nor
were the Whigs quite innocent of this imputation ; long
service and favour had gradually taught them a much
greater complaisance to the Crown tiian they had for-
merly paid to it, and the power of the Crown being an
engine at present in their own hands, they were not very
reluctant to keep up an authority they exercised, and
support the prerogative which was tiieir own present
tiiough precarious possession. The assistance likewise

1727. WHIG AND TORY. 5

which the Whigs in power had received from the bench
of bishops in parliamentary affairs, had made them show
their gratitude in return, by supporting both them
and the inferior clei^ in all ecclesiastical concerns (ex*
cept the suffering the Convocation to sit), with as much
vigour and firmness jas the most zealous of those who are
called the Church Party could have done. The increase
of the army and civil list, the repeated suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act, and frequent votes of credit in the
late reign, were further instances that were often and
not unreasonably given by the Tories of the Whigs de-
viating in their conduct from their original profession
and principles.

Both Whigs and Tories were subdivided into two
parties : the Tories into Jacobites and what were called
Hanover Tories ; the Whigs into patriots and courtiers,
which was in plain English " WTiigs in place** and
" Whigs out of place** The Jacobite party was fallen
so low, from the indolence of some, the defection of
others, and the despair of all, that in reality it con^
sisted only of a few veterans (and those very few) who
were really Jacobites by principle, and some others who,
educated in that calling, made it a point of honour not
to quit the name, though their attachment to the person
of the Pretender was not only weakened but, properly
speaking, entirely dissolved — their consciences quiet
about his title, and their reverence to his character, their
compassion for his misfortunes, and their hopes of his
success quite worn out.

That which kept this party still alive, and gave it
that little weight it yet retained in the kingdom, was,
that all those who were by private views piqued at the

6 LORD HBRYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chjif. I.

administration without being disaffected to the govern-
ment joined the Jacobites in Parliament^ and pushed
the same points, though on different motives ; these only
designing to distress the ministers, and those catching
at anything that might shake the establishment of the
Hanover fiimily, and tend to the subversion of the whole.

By these means men oftentimes seemed united in
their public conduct who differed as much in their pri-
vate wishes and views from one another as they did
from those they opposed ; and whilst they acted in con<^
cert together, both thought they were playing only their
own game, and each looked upon the other as his dupe.

This was the state of the Jacobite party at the death
of tlie late King [Oeoi^I.], and without these recruits,
raised by the defection of Whigs upon interested mo-
tives and contention for power, I am of opinion that
the Pretender's party would by that time have been m
dead in this kingdom as if he himself had been so. The
little interest he had in any Court abroad made his par-
tisans expect little external assistance, and the notion of
hereditary right at home had been so long ridiculed and
exploded, that there were few people whose loyalty was
80 strong, or whose understanding was so weak, as to
retain and act upon it. The conscientious attachment
to the natural right of this or that king, and the reli-
gious reverence to 6od*s anointed, was so far eradicated
by the propagation of revolutionary principles, tibiat
mankind was become much more clear-sighted on that
score than formerly, and so &r compreh^ided and gave
into the doctrine of a king being made for the people
and not the people for the king, that in all their steps
it was the interest of the nation or the interest of par-

1121, WHIG AND TORY. 7

ticular actors that was eoi^sidered, and never the depurate
interest of one or the other king. And though one
might be Surprised (if any absurdity arisiag from the
credulity and ignorance of mankind eouM surprise one)
how the influence of power could ever have found means
to establish the doctrine of Divine right of kiQgs^ yet no
one can wonder that the opinion lost ground so fast when
it became the interest even of the princes on the throne
ibr three successive reigns to expel iu The clergy, who
had been paid for preaching it up, were now paid for
preaching it down ; the Legislature had dedared it of
no force in the form of our government^ and contrary to
the iundamental laws and nature of our Constitution ;
and what was more prevailing than all the rest^ it was
no longer the interest of the majority of the kingdom
either to propagate or act on this principle, and conse-
quently those who were before wise enough from policy
to teach it, were wise enough now from the same policy
to explode it ; and those who were weak enough to take
it up only because they were told it, were easily
brought to lay it down by the same influence.

It will not be difficulty from what has been said of
the state of party at this juncture in England, to perceive
that the chief struggle now lay, not between Jacobites
and Hanoverians, or Tories and Whigs, but between
Whigs and Whigs, who, conquerors in the common
cause, were now split into civil contest among them-
selves, and had no considerable opponents but one
another.

The heads of these two Whig parties ware Sir Robert
Walpole and Mr. Pulteney.* The first was Chancellor

s Walpole was born 26th Avgwt, 1676 ; aad educated at Eton and Kior'f

g LORD HERVEY'S MBMOIRS. Chap. I.

of the Exchequer, First Commissioner of the Treasury,
and Prime Minister. The other had been Secretary-
at-War; disgraced, retaken into the administration as
Cofferer, but failing in his endeavours to be made Secre-
tary of State [on Lord Carteret* 8 retiring in 1724], had
set himself at the head of the opposition to the Court,
and meditated nothing but the ruin of Sir Robert Wal-
pole, to whose account he placed the irremissible sin of
putting the Duke of Newcastle into that employment
he had pretended to.

The reasons why Sir Robert Walpole had given the
preference to the Duke upon this occasion, I believe
were these: — He thought his Grace's quality and estate,

College, Cambridge. He came into Queen Anne*8 first Parliament for
Lynn, for which he sat till his peerage. In 1708 he succeeded St John
as Secretary-at-War, and in 1710 became Treasurer of the Navy. On the
change of ministry ho was accused, and by the House of Commons voted
guilty, of corruption in the War Office, expelled the House and sent to
the Tower. On the accession of George I. he was appointed Paymaster of
the Forces, and in October, 1716, First Lord of the Treasury and Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, Lord Townshend, his brother-in-law, being Secre-
tary of State, and considered as First Minister. In April, 1717, they were
overthrown by Lord Sunderland, and Walpole went into strong opposition ;
but in June, 1720, was re-appointed Paymaster, and employed (insidi-
ously, it was suspected) by Lord Sunderland to repair the mischiefs of
the South Sea scheme : in which, however, Sunderland himself was found
to be implicated, and being forced to resign, Walpole was re-appointed
(April, 1721) First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer :
in these offices he continued till 1742, when he was out-voted in Parlia-
ment, resigned, and was created Earl of Orford, and died on the 18th
March, 1745, set. sixty-eight. At the commencement of these Memoirs
in 1727 he was therefore about fifty-one.

William Pulteney was bom in 1682, elected into Queen Anne's last
Parliament, and, on the King*s accession, made Secretary-at- War ; dis-
missed, with Walpole and Townshend, in 1717 ; made Cofierer of the
Household in 1723, but resigned next year, as stated in the text; and
thenceforward became and continued leader of the Opposition till 1742,
when, like his great antagonist, he retired to the House of Lords, and the
Earl of Bath soon sank into neglect, and almost oblivion. He died in
1762 : at the commencement of the Memoirs he was forty-five.

1727. PTTLTBNEY. 9

bis popularity in the country, and the great influence
he had in Parliament by the number of boroughs he
commanded, were qualifications and appurtenances that
would always make him a useful friend to any minister ;
and looked upon his understanding to be such as could
never let him rise into a dangerous rival. Mr. Pulteney
he knew was a man of parts, but not to be depended
upon; one capable of serving a minister, but more capable
of hurting him from desiring only to serve himself. He
was a man of most inflexible pride, immeasurable am*
bition, and so impatient of any superiority, that he
grudged the power of doing good even to his benefac-
tor, and envied the &vour of the Court to one who called
him in to share it He had as much lively ready wit
as ever man was master of; and was, before politics
soured his temper and engrossed his thoughts, the most
agreeable and coveted companion of his time : he was
naturally lazy, and continued so till he was out of em-
ployment: his resentment and eagerness to annoy first
taught him application; application gave him know-
ledge, but knowledge did not give him judgment, nor
experience, prudence : he was changeable in his wishes,
vehement in the pursuit of them, and dissatisfied in the
possession. He had strong passions ; was seldom sin-
cere but when they ruled him : cool and unsteady in
his friendships, warm and immovable in his hate : na-
turally not generous, and made less so by the influence
of a wife whose person he loved, but whose understand-
ing and conduct neither had nor deserved his good opi-
nion, and whose temper both he and every other body
abhorred — a weak woman with all the faults of a bad
man ; of low birth, a lower mind, and the lowest man-

10 LORD H£RYEY'8 HSHOIRS. Chjif. I.

Hers, and without any one good, agreeablei or amiable
quality but beauty/

It was very remarkable in Mr. Pulteney, that he
never liked the people with whom he acted dbiiefiy in
his public character, nor loved those with whom he
passed his idler hours. Sir Robert Walpole, with whom
he was first leagued, he has often declared both in public
and in private, in conversation and in print, he never
esteemed ; and Lord Bolingbroke, with whom he was
afterwards engaged, neither he nor any other body
could esteem. Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Greorge Berke-
ley,^ with whom he lived in the most seeming intimacy,
he mortally hated ; but continued that seeming intimacy
long after he did so, merdy from a refinement of pride,
and an affectation of being blind to what nobody else
could help seeing. They had both made love to his
wife, and though, I firmly believe, both unsuccessfully,
yet many were of a contrary opinion ; for her folly, her
vanity, her coquetry, had given her husband the same
jealousy, and the world the same suspicion, as if she
had gone all those lengths in private, which her public
conduct, without one's being very credulous, would
naturally have led one to believe.

* Anna Maria Gamlej. Sir C. H. Wiliiams treats her ?ei7 diare-
spectfully : Pulteney, he says, — in becoming Lord Bath, —

** trucked the fairest fame

For a right honourable name
To call his vixen by."

And, again, he calls her" Bath's eimoNed Dox^f" and has several allusions
to her stinginess and cormption ; but her personal beauty was uniTeraally
admitted.

^ Youngest son of the second Earl of Berkeley, M.P. for Dover from
1720 to 1734, and for Hedon, by Pulteney's influence, from 1734 to his
death in 1746 ; second husband of Lady Suffolk.

1727. PULTENEY. 11

Between Mr. Pulteney and Sir WUlkm Wyndham
(the head of the Hanover Tories and his colleague in
all public afikirs) there was such a serious rivalry for
reputation in oratory^ interest with particulars,'' know-
ledge in business^ popularity in the country, weight in
Parliament, and the numbets of their followers, that die
superior enmity they bore to men in power alone bin-
dered tiiat which they felt to one another from eclating.

Lord Hervey lived in friendship and intimacy with
him many years, but the manner in which Mr. Pul-
teney broke with him ^ showed that his attachment there
was not much deeper rooted in his heart than that ar-
tificial kindness he wore towards those who deserved no
real affection at his hands.

Those who thought that Mr. Pulteney was never good*^
humoured, pleasing, honourable, friendly, and benevolent,
knew him not early ; those who never thought him other-
wise, knew him not long ; for no two men ever differed
more from one another, in temper, conduct, and charac-
ter, than he from himself in the compass of a few years.

From what has been said, it will be easy to perceive
there were many ingredients in Mr. Pulteney's com-
position that might deter Sir Robert Walpole from
making such a man Secretary of State ; but one very
material objection, besides what has already been
mentioned, I believe was this : —

When, in 1724, the animosity between LordTowns-

ft A GallicisnH-^parfibttfi^rtf— for " individual " or " private persons." It
10 frequent throi^hout tiiese Memoirs.

« We shall see by and by that the quarrel arose from a difference in politics
on Lord Henrey's joining Walpole, which ripened into a war of scurrilous
pamphlets, and a duel (26 January, 1731) between these former friends.

12 LORD HERVEY'S MJSMOIRS. Ckjlv. I.

hend and Lord Carteret, the two Secretaries of State
at that time, was grown to such a height that it was
impossible for them to serve longer together, and that
each of them was struggling to subvert the other, Mr.
Pulteney thought, by his dexterity, so to manage his
affairs that, whoever was the sacrifice, he should be the
successor : to this end he entered into a secret corre*
spondence and treaty with Lord Carteret, of which Sir
Robert Walpole got intelligence, and from that moment
resolved) since Mr. Pulteney had endeavoured to secure
himself an entrance at this other door in case it was
opened, that at least he should never come in where he
held the key.

It is very possible ihat I may be thought to dwell too
long upon this part of my introduction ; but as the anger
of this Achilles made so considerable' a figure, and for
so long a time, in England, I thought the particulars of
its rise, and the whole character of this remarkable and,
with all his imperfections^ certainly great man, would
not be an unsatisfactory digression to posterity.

And since I look upon this introduction as a sort of
Dramatis Personce to the following work, and that the
chief actors in the political part of it are Sir Eobert
Walpole and Mr. Pulteney, Sir William Wyndhamand
Lord Bolingbroke, I shall add a short sketch also of
the three other characters, — at least so far as shall
enable the reader to guess, by what passed antecedent
to this reign, the distant springs and causes of many
events that happened in it

Lord Bolingbroke"^ was first employed, in Queen

"^ Bolingbroke was born in 1678 (not 1672, as commonly supposed) and
died in 1751. He was now about forty-nine.

1727. BOUNGBROKE. 13

Anne's reign, by die Duke of Marlborough and the
Lord Treasurer Godolphin, whom he abandoned at the
change of her Whig ministry. He was again brought
into business and power by the Lord Treasurer Oxford,
whom he undermined, supplanted in the Queen's fa-
vour, and turned out Few people disputed, and fewer
still doubted, his having been in the Pretender's in-
terest before the death of the Queen. As soon as the
Hanover family came to the Crown, he was impeached
of high treason, did not dare to stand his trial, fled, and
was attainted. He then entered immediately, publicly,
and avowedly, into the Pretender's service, but was
soon discarded by him, and returned to France. The
occasion of this disgrace was said to be his having be-
trayed the Pretender in order to gain his pardon at the
Court of England. But as this was a fact difficult in
its nature to be proved against him by those who were
not concerned in it, and very improper to be proved by
those who were, he always denied it, though without con-
vincing anybody tiiat he was guiltless of the chaise.

The Queen herself told me, eight years after she came
to the Crown, that Madame de Yillette,* at Leicester-
house, had made a merit to her of Lord Bolingbroke's
having entered into the Pretender's service, because she
said he had done it with no other view than to serve
the Court of London, and earn his pardon. ^^That
was, in short (said the Queen, when she told me this).

® Marie Claire Deschamps de Marcilly, niece of Madame de Maint^on
and widow of the Marquis de Villette, second wife of Lord Bolingbroke.
The marriage, secret and even disclaimed, as we shall see, for some years,
was thought to hare taken place soon after the death of the first Lady
Bolingbroke in October 1718.

14 LOBB HSRVSY'S MBMOIRS. Ciuf. L

to betray the Pretender ; iot though Madame de Y iUette
softened the word, she did not soften the thing; which
I own (continued the Que^i) was a speech that had so
much villainy and impudence mixed in it, that I could
never bear him nor her from that hour; and could
hardly hinder myself from saying to her—-* And pray,
Madam, what security can the King have that my Lord
Bolingbroke does not desire to come here with the same
honest intent that he went to Rome ? Or that he swears
he is no longer a Jacobite with more truth than you
have sworn you are not his wife/ " • That Lady Boling-
broke made this confession to the Queen, I learned, as I
have said before, from the Queen herself; and it was
universally bdieved that he betrayed the Pretender.
It is very sure that from that period the stanch Jaco-
bites always bated and vilified him as much as the
stanchest Whigs, Everybody knew that in Lord Sun*
derland's administration, and by his mediation, Lord
Bolingbroke obtained the King's pardon, and (as he
pretended) an absolute promise of the iull reversal of
his attainder, with the restitution of his honour and
estate ; but on what conditions and for what considera-
tion he could receive this frill forgiveness, and even
promise of reward, those who deny his having betrayed
the Pretender would be pusszled to say : for the twelve
thousand pounds given by Madame de Y illette (niece to
Madame de Maintenon), whom he married in France,
to Lady Wakingham (niece ^® to the King's mistress, the

* The ezplanadon of this circumstance will appear in p. 16.

10 Or, as was rather suspected, her daughter, by Geoi^ I. She was
created Countess of Walsingham in 1722, married the celebrated Lord
Chesterfield in 1733, and died in 1778.

1727. LABT BOLIKGBBOKB. 15

Dudbesscf Kendal), was never paid^ nor oflered, nor
negotiated &r, till seven years after this promise was
obtained. Lord Sunderland died [ 1722] ; but Lord
Bolingbroke, notwithstanding, came back to England in
1723, by virtue of an Act of Parliament, which enabled
him to inherit his fatiber's estate, but did not restore his
dignity, and entailed the estate, in case he had not chil*
dren, on his brother, leaving him a power of raising no
more than 10,000/. upon it. Sir Robert Walpole was
then at the head o£ the Ministry, and on him fell all
the resentment of Loid Bolingbroke fw this failure in
two such material articles of what he pretended had
been promised him ; though it is certain the King never
owned he had made such a promise ; and if he had, Iht
cry of the whole nation at that time ran so strong
against Lord Bolingbroke, that most people were then
of opinion, if it had been proposed in Parliamjent^ it
would not only have shaken the Whig interest^ by
splitting and tearing tlie party to pieces, but have proved
too much for the influence of the Court to have carried
through, as omnipotent as some at that time might
imagine it

Madame de Yillette, who was then in England soli-
citing his cause at Court, instead of being satisfied with
the bargain of this Act of Parliament for her 12,000/.,
carried her resentment of it so high that she declared
publicly to every one she met, that the Ministers had
not only made the King break his word, but had so
clogged and loaded what they called benefits, que lea
faveurs du Roi itoient des affronts; and that if she
knew Lord Bolingbroke at all, she was sure he had
rather live an exile all his days than submit to an im*

16 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chav. I.

perfect restoration on such cramped, dishonourable
terms. The sequel showed she either did not know
him, or pretended not to know him ; for home he came,
and only on these terms. The first thing he did when
he came to England was so like the last thing he did
before he left it, that — notwithstanding all the declara-
tions he made of his ambition being quite extinct — of
his seeking and desiring nothing but quiet, oblivion, re-
tirement, and a harbour firom the political storms in
which he had been so long tossed — he began imme-
diately to enter anew into Court intrigues, Parliament-
ary cabals, and paper war, and retrace all the paths
that had before brought him to the brink of ruin. He
began again, by pamphlets, to attack the conduct of
public afiairs, both foreign and domestic ; to endeavour
to turn the persons of those concerned in the adminis-
tration into ridicule, their understandings into con-
tempt, and their actions into errors and crimes. Soon
after his return, he acknowledged Madame de Yillette
as his wife, which everybody knew she had been for
some time, though not a year before she had solemnly
forsworn her being so in a court of judicature, in order
to draw a sum of money out of the hands of a banker "
who pretended Cvery likely only for the advantage of

11 Sir Matthew Decker. Bolingbroke writes to Wyndham in explanation
of this affair, 22nd May, 1724, << Madame de Yillette will appear [in that
name or as Lady Bolingbroke] as she finds it necessary on account of her
money, which John Drummond put and kept unjustifiably in that rascal
Decker's hands. If it is not yet paid, she is only Madame de ViUetUy and
has nothing to do with my affairs ; for surely any dissimulatum U aHowalNe
to get out of the hands of robbers and assassins."— Coze, ii. 331. Sir Mat-
thew Decker had a great reputation for probity and piety, and may have
acted bona fide, for it seems next to certain that the money was originally
Bolingbroke*s own, and, at all events, would have become, by the marriage,
legally bis.

1'72'7. LADY BOUNGBROKE. 17

fingering the money a little longer) that without a de-
cree in Chancery he could not be secure in delivering
it The banker said, if she was Lord Bolingbroke's
wife, as was currently reported and by everybody be-
lieved, her money was his ; and as his was forfeited by
his attainder to the Government, consequently any
banker in whose hands it was lodged would, notwith-
standing the repayment to his wife, be accountable to
the Government for it.

This chicane of the banker's put her ladyship under
the disagreeable difficulty of either risking her 52,000/.
(for the sum was no less), or denying that upon oath,
which in a few months would be owned, and was al-
ready known, to all the world ; however, her conscience
and her interest had no long struggle ; she forswore her
marriage and received her money. The pious Duchess
of Kendal pretended to be extremely shocked at this
conduct; but the sore it made carried its own cure
along witii it; for the money Lady Bolingbroke was
by this means enabled to give to Lady Walsingham,
and the influence Lady Walsingham (whose conscience
was less delicate) had over her aunt, soon set matters to
right, so that Lady Bolingbroke had again access to the
Duchess, and by the force of a great deal of insinuation
and dexterity (for nobody ever had more) she took
such fast hold of this old, simple, easy, honest woman,
and her avaricious fury of a niece, that Lord Boling-
broke got what he pleased suggested by his wife to the
Duchess, and by the Duchess to the King. He did
not fail to make use of this canal to convey all the bad
impressions he could of Sir Robert Walpole ; and he
had so far gained her Grace, that he prevailed with her

VOL, I. c

18 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. I.

to deliver a letter to the King that contained a com-
pendium of every accusation laid before or after in that
weekly philippic the ^ Craftsman Journal ;' and this at
the very time when he was constantly telling Sir Robert
that the very air he breathed was the gift of his bounty,
and that without his assistance he must have passed his
whole life in proscription, poverty, and exile. The
letter concluded with a petition to the King to see him
at the Duchess of Kendal's lodgings, a promise to prove
in detail all he had advanced in the letter, and a desire,
if he did not convince his Majesty in that audience
that Sir Bobert was the weakest minister any prince
ever employed abroad, and the wickedest that ever had
the direction of afiairs at home, that the King would
never hear nor see him any more. The first use the
King made of this letter was to show it to Sir Robert,
and ask him what answer he should give to it; Sir
Robert advised him to see Lord Bolingbroke, and hear
all he had to say, which the King absolutely reftised ; but
as Sir Robert imagined, in case he should advise the
King to stick to that refusal, or not press him to retract
it, that his enemies would insinuate it was his fear of
what Lord Bolingbroke had to say that made him con-
trive to shut the King's ear to his accuser, he prevailed
with his Majesty to consent to this interview. Sir
Robert, who was now in possession of the letter, found
out that it was the Duchess of Kendal who had given it
to the King, and as it was delivered open, he knew she
must have been acquainted with the contents, and con-
sequently could not have been much averse to its suc-
ceeding. It did so far succeed that the King saw Lord
Bolingbroke — ^but for the last time, and his Majesty

1727. BOUNGBROKE'S INTBIGUES. 19

told Sir Robert everything that passed at this inter*
view.

After his lordship had in a very long, florid exordium
set forth his own merits knowledge, and abilities, and
entered into general accusations and invectives against
Sir Robert, the King asked him what particular charge
he could advance and prove, to make good these gene-
ral assertions ; for that much more was requisite than
what he had yet heard, to weaken his favour or alter
his opinion of a minister whose services he had already
found so beneficial to him, in whose counsels he had
so much confidence, and of whose judgment he had
experienced so many proofs. To this Lord Bolingbroke
made no other reply than recapitulating the same in-
vectives in different words, telling the King how odious
Sir Robert was to the people in general, how insolent
to particulars; how ignorant he was thought in the
foreign, how corrupt in the domestic; and, in short,
that he was so despised abroad and hated at home, that^
if continued in power, he would bring his Majesty's
negotiations into irretrievable difficulties, and make the
King at last as unpopular in this country as himself.
To which the King made no other answer than coolly
asking him whether that was all he had to say, and then
dismissed him.^'

But Sir Robert, notwithstanding this material in-
stance of the strength of his interest in the closet, could
not but be much alarmed to find that below stairs ^' he

12 I relate this whole story just as it was told to me by Sir Robert Walpole
himself. — Lord Hervey. It b told in the ' Reminiscences ' more sucdnctly,
and with some not important variations in the details.

i> The King's closet was on the first floor of the palace of St. James's ; the
Duchess of Kendal's and Lady Walsingham's on the ground-floor, next the
garden.

c 2

20 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Ch/lp. I.

had two such formidable enemies, and Lord Boling-
broke two such powerful advocates, as the Duchess and
her niece. He consulted with Lord Townshend what
was to be done ; he found Lady Bolingbroke had con-
stant access to the Duchess, knew she had credit there,
and very reasonably, of course, feared that what had
made no impression at first might, by repeated ap-
plications, come to have its efiect at last His jea-
lousies and suspicions increased so much that, just before
the last time the King set out for Hanover, he told the
King what he apprehended fi*om the Duchess's favour
to Lord Bolingbroke and interest with his Majesty.
And as it had been very sanguinely insinuated by Lord
Bolingbroke to his friends, and buzzed about in whispers
even at Court, that his Majesty was at last prevailed
upon to discard him, and that the stroke already re-
solved upon was to be struck when he was at Hanover,
he begged only to know from his Majesty what founda-
tion there was for such suggestions ; and if he was come
to any resolution of that sort, that he would be so kind
as to execute it before his departure. The King assured
him he had no such intentions, and went so far as to
say he took it ill of Sir Kobert that he could believe
him so weak as to be wrought upon ,by any persuasion
or interest whatever to change a servant he loved and
valued, for a knave whose conduct, character, and prin-
ciples he had always abhorred.^*

Thus stood Sir Robert Walpole's credit and Lord
Bolingbroke's hopes at Court when the late King went

H This corroborates directly what Horace Walpole only inferred from
drcumstances. — Reminitcenceg,

172Y. BOLINGBROKE'S CHARACTER. 21

last over. As to Lord Bolingbroke's general character,
it was so mixed that he had certainly some qualifications
that the greatest men might be proud of, and many
which the worst would be ashamed of: he had fine
talents, a natural eloquence, great quickness, a happy
memory, and very extensive knowledge: but he was
vain, much beyond the general run of mankind, timid,
false, injudicious, and ungrateful ; elate and insolent in
power, dejected and servile in disgrace : few people ever
believed him without being deceived, or trusted him
without being betrayed : he was one to whom prosperity
was no advantage, and adversity no instruction : he had
brought his afiairs to that pass that he was almost as
much distressed in his private fortune as desperate in
his political views, and was upon such a foot in the
world that no king would employ him, no party support
him, and few particulars defend him; his enmity
was the contempt of those he attacked, and his firiend-
ship a weight and reproach to those he adhered to.
Those who were most partial to him could not but
allow that he was ambitious without fortitude, and en-
terprising without resolution; that he was fawning
without insinuation, and insincere without art ; that he
had admirers without friendship, and followers without
attachment; parts. without probity, knowledge without
conduct, and experience without judgment. This was
certainly his character and situation ; but since it is the
opinion of the wise, the speculative, and the learned,
that most men are born with the same propensities,
actuated by the same passions, and conducted by the
same original principles, and differing only in the man-
ner of pursuing the same ends, I shall not so far chime

22 LOKD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. I.

in witE the bulk of Lord Bolingbroke's contemporaries
as to pronounce he had more failings than any man
ever had ; but it is impossible to see all that is written,
and hear all that is said of him, and not allow that if he
had not a worse heart than the rest of mankind, at
least he must have had much worse luck.

It will not be necessary to say much on the character
of Sir Kobert Walpole ; the following work will de-
monstrate his abilities in business and his dexterity
in Courts and Parliaments to have been much su-
perior to his contemporaries. He had a^strength of
parts equal to any advancement, a spirit to struggle
with any difficulties, a steadiness of temper immoveable
by any disappointments. He had great skill in figures,
the nature of the funds, and the revenue ; his first ap-
plication was to this branch of knowledge ; but as he
afterwards rose to the highest posts of power, and con-
tinued longer there than any first minister in this
country since Lord Burleigh ever did, he grew, of
course, conversant with all the other parts of govern-
ment, and very soon equally able in transacting them :
the weight of the whole administration lay on him ;
every project was of his forming, conducting, and exe-
cuting : from the time of making the Treaty of Hanover,
all the foreign as well as domestic affairs passed through
his hands : and, considering the little assistance he re-
ceived from subalterns, it is incredible what a variety
and quantity of business he dispatched ; but as he had
infinite application and long experience, so he had great
method and a prodigious memory, with a mind and
spirit that were indefatigable: and without every one of
these natural as well as acquired advantages, it would in-

1Y27. WALPOIA. 23

deed have been impossible for him to go through half what
he undertook.

No man ever was blessed with a clearer head, a truer
or quicker judgment, or a deeper insight into mankind ;
he knew the strength and weakness of everybody he
had to deal with, and how to make his advantage of
both^l^e had more warmth of affection and friendship
for some particular people than one could have believed
it possible for any one who had been so long raking ini
the dirt of mankind to be capable of feeling for so
worthless a species of animals. One should naturally
have imagined that the contempt and distrust he must
have had for the species in gross, would have given him
at least an indifference and distrust towards every parti-
cular. Whether his negligence of his enemies, and never
stretching his power to gratify his resentment of the
sharpest injury, was policy or constitution, I shall not de-
termine : but I do not believe anybody who knows these
times will deny that no minister ever was more outraged,
or less apparently revengeiul. Some of his friends, who
were not unforgiving themselves, nor very apt to see ima-
ginary faults in him, have condemned this easiness in his
temper as a weakness that has often exposed him to new
injuries, and given encouragement to his adversaries to
insult him with impunity. Brigadier Churchill,^* a worthy
and good-natured, friendly and honourable man, who
had lived Sir Robert's intimate friend for many years,
and through all the different stages of his power and

i^ Charles Churchill, a natural son of a brother of the great Duke of
Marlborough, Colonel 1707 — Major-General 1735. His natural son by
Mrs. Oldfield married Sir Robert Walpole's natural daughter by Miss
Skerritt, to whom, on her father's peerage in 1742, was scandalously giren
the nmk of an Earl's daughter.

24 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. I.

retirement, prosperity and disgrace, has often said that
Sir Bobert Walpole was so little able to resist the
show of repentance in those from whom he had re-
ceived the worst usage, that a few tears and promises of
Amendment have often washed out the stains even of
ingratitude.

In all occurrences, and at all times, and in all diffi-
culties, he was constantly present and cheerftil ; he had
very litde' of what is generally called insinuation, and
with which people are apt to be taken for the present,
without being gained; but no man ever knew better
anibng those he had to deal with who was to be had,
on what terms, by what methods, and how the acquisi-
tipn would answer. He was not one of those projecting
systematical gi^eat geniuses who are always thinking
in theory^ and are above iK)mmon practice: he had been
too long conversant in business not to know that in the
fluctuation of human affairs and variety of accidents to
which the best concerted schemes are liable, they must
often be disappointed who build on the certainty of the
most probable events ; and therefore seldom turned his
thoughts to the provisional warding off future evils
which might or might not happen ; or the scheming of
remote advantages, subject to so many intervening
crosses ; but always applied himself to the present oc-
currence, studying and generally hitting upon the pro-
perest method to improve what was favourable, and the
best expedient to extricate himself out of what was dif-
ficult. There never was any minister to whom access
was so easy and so frequent, nor whose answers were
more explicit. He knew how to oblige when he be-
stowed, Siiad not to shock when he denied ; to govern

1727. WYNDHAM. 25

without oppressing, and conquer without triumph. He
pursued his ambition without curbing his pleasures, and
his pleasures without neglecting his business; he did
the latter with ease, and indulge4 himself in the
other without giving scandal or offence.'* In private
life, and to all who had any dependence upon him, he
was kind and indulgent ; he was generous without os-
tentation, and an economist without penuriousness ; not
insolent in success, nor irresolute in distress; faithful
to his firiends, and not inveterate to his foes.

Sir William Wyndham," who was at the head of those
who called themselves Hanover Tories at the death of

1* Thb is not exact. It gave great scandal, and excited both ridicule
and reproach. The rest of the character is just enough. Pope, to whom
he had granted a private favour, has immortalized his good humour ahd good
nature : —

^* Seen him I have, but in his happier hour \^

Of social pleasure ill-exchanged for power —

Seen him, incumbent with the venal tribe.

Smile without art, and win without a bribe."
And Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote the following lines on his
portrait : — ^

'^ These were the lively eyes and rosy hue

Of Robin's face when Robin first I knew ;

The gay companion and the favourite guest,

Loved without awe, and without views caress'd.

His cheerful smile and honest open look

Added new graces to the truths he spoke.

Then every man found something to commend.

The pleasant neighbour and the worthy friend ;

The generous master of a private house,

The tender father and indulgent spouse.

The hardest censors, at the worst, believed

His temper was too easily deceived :

A consequential ill good-nature draws ;

A bad effect, but from a noble cause ! "
1' I do not find the exact date of Wyndham's birth ; but as he was first
married in July, 1708, and was brought forward in office 1711, ^* at a very
earfy age/' he was probably bom about 1685. He died in 1740, before the
triumph of his party over Walpole. ^

26 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Crap. I.

the late King, was first brought into the political world
by Lord Bolingbroke in the latter end of Queen Anne's
reign, and, of course, began the world, if not an avowed
Jacobite, at least a Jacobite very little dii^ised. He
was a man of family, fortune, and figure, but pushed
up to the employment of Chancellor of the Exchequer
by the favour of Lord Bolingbroke, at a time when
neither his years, his experience, his talents, his know-
ledge, nor his weight could give him any pretence to
the distinction of so great a post. But though the
Sclat of this advancement might flatter his ambition at
first, yet the gratitude which he showed to his bene-
factor by linking his fortune with his became a clog to
that ambition ever after, and made the friendship that
first raised him above his desert keep him afterwards
down as much below it. In the beginning of the late
reign nobody doubted his being one of the chief pro-
moters of that disafiection and those commotions in the
West which ended in an open rebellion : his conduct at
that time is not to be justified ; to raise a spirit of
Jacobitism and sedition in a parcel of unhappy wretches
who were led by his judgment and trusted to his pro-
tection, and to leave them at that very crisis when the
spirit he had fomented brought them to action, was a
conduct for which his best friends must think his
timidity the best excuse. However, his not appearing
now in open rebellion did not prevent the Government,
as they were informed of his previous clandestine steps,
from sending a messenger to apprehend him ; he was
seized at his own house, Witham, in Somersetshire,
but made his escape out of the messenger's hands upon
having leave given him to bid his wife adieu in tibe

1727. WTNDHAM. 27

next room, and giving his honour to Colonel Hurst^ as
the messenger affirms and he denies, to return imme-
diately and surrender himself into custody. He fled in
a clergyman's habit ; but, at the instigation of his father-
in-law, the Duke of Somerset, in a little time surren-
dered himself to the Government, was kept prisoner
some months in the Tower, then admitted to bail, but
never brought to a trial. Just before Lord Boling-
broke returned from France it was thought he was
capitulating with the administration; but his attach-
ment to his old friend and patron, the influence that
friend had over him, and the irreconcilable enmity
Lord Bolingbroke bore to Sir Robert Walpole, utterly
put an end to those dealings, if ever there were such
on foot ; his behaviour at the time of the rebellion, and
his taking all opportunities afterwards to declare him-
self a strong Hanoverian, made the Jacobites not love
him, though they did not care to separate from him.

He was far fit)m having first-rate parts, ^' but by a gen-
tleman-like general behaviour and constant attendance
in the House of Commons, a close application to the busi-
ness of it, and frequent speaking, he had got a sort of
Parliamentary routine, and without being a bright
speaker was a popular one, well heard, and usefril to
his party. Lord Bolingbroke's closet was the school to
which he owed all his knowledge of foreign affairs, and
where he made himself master of many facts that got
him attention and gave him reputation in Parliament,

IS Speaker Onslow, influenced probably by Wjmdham's weight in the
House, giret a much higher estimate of his parts : — " He was in my opi-
nion most made for a great man of any one that I have known in this age,
— eyery thing about him seemed great," &c. — CoxCf 562.

28 LORD HEBYEY S MEMOIRS. Chap. I.

though they were not introduced with that art, ex-
pressed with that energy, nor set off with that eloquence
that would have attended them could his schoolmaster
have delivered them there without a proxy.

When Mr. Pulteney and Sir William Wyndham were
at the head of the opposition to the Court, Sir William's
antagonists contributed much more than his friends to
the advancement of his reputation ; for as there was a
secret rivalry and jealousy between these two Consuls of
the Patriots (for so they were pleased to christen their
faction), and that pique Sir Robert Walpole had to
Mr. Pulteney was infinitely greater than any enmity
he bore to the other — so all Sir Kobert Walpole's
people, to flatter him and mortiiy Mr. Pulteney, took
every opportunity to compliment Sir William Wynd-
ham in public assemblies, and give him the preference
to his colleague whenever they were compared in pri-
vate companies ; though it was impossible for any im-
partial body to think that Mr. Pulteney was not as much
Sir William Wyndham*s superior in parts, knowledge,
eloquence, and every other qualification but temper
requisite to make a formidable enemy or a useful
friend, as he was in fortune, in writing, and even in
reputation, notwithstanding the partiality of their own
party and the affectation of the other exerted itself so
evidently to brighten the character of the one and
obscure the fame of the other. The public was on this
occasion, as on most others, much juster than any of
the particulars that compose it, and decided so much in
favour of Mr. Pulteney, that as his name at home was
mentioned in conversation, in print, at Court, and by
the populace twenty times for once that the other was

1727. WYNDHAM. 29

ever thought o^ so in foreign courts it was as familiarly
known as in that of England itself where the other
was never heard of.

This was the state of party and faction in England,
and these their leaders^ at the time of the accession of
King George II. to the crown.

30 LOBD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Ch^. n.

CHAPTER II.

Accession of George II. — Sir Spencer Compton designated as First Minis-
ter— His incapadty and blunders — ^Aspect of the Court — Walpole sup-
ported by the Queen, and continued in office— Her vey's attachment to
Walpole — Civil List and Queen's Jointure Settled— Few official changes
— Sir William Yonge— Lord Berkeley — Lord Torrington — ^the Battle of
Cape Passaro— Motives of the King's adoption of Walpole — Mrs.
Howard — ^Mary Bellenden — Superior influence of the Queen.

The late King died on the road to Hanover, on the
11th of June, 1727, at Osnaburg, in the very same
room where he was born. On Wednesday, June 14,
news was brought by an express to Sir Bobert Walpole,
who was at dinner at Chelsea ^ when it arrived ; he
went imnaediately to Richmond (where the Prince of
Wales then was) to acquaint him with what had hap-
pened, and receive his orders. The Prince was laid to

1 Where Sir Robert Walpole had a villa. << On the death of King
George I.," says Horace Walpole, '' my father kiUed two horses in carrying
the tidings to his successor ; and kneeling down asked ' who should com-
pose his Majesty's speech ? ' [to the council]. The King told him to go to
Sir Spencer Compton. That gentleman, unused to public business ^ was
forced to send for Sir Egbert to help him in the composition. The Queen
upon this asked the King if he had not better employ his father's minister,
who could manage his business without the help of another. My father
was XThStantly appointed." — WalpoUana^ § 104. I suspect that in this
case (as in some others) Horace Walpole has not been quite accurately
reported by the editor of WalpoilUma. It seems hardly credible that Sir
Robert should have killed two horses between Chelsea and Richmond ;
nor, as we shall see presently, were the other steps of the afiair so rapid
as thus stated. Nor do I think that Horace Walpole could have repre-
sented Compton as unused to public business: he was now turned of iifly ;
he had been all his political life in office, had succeeded Walpole himself
as Paymaster^ and had been Speaker in three Parliaments. It was, there-
fore, not the habits of business that he wanted, but sagacity and talents.
He was a younger son of the third Earl of Northampton.

1727. NEW MINISTER. 31

sleep (as his custom had been for many years after
dinner), and the Princess was in the bed-chamber with
him, when the Duchess of Dorset, the lady-in-waiting,
went in to let them know Sir Robert Walpole was
there, who was immediately brought in; all he said
was, ^^ I am come to acquaint your Majesty with the
death of your father." The King seemed extremely
surprised, but not enough to forget his resentment to
Sir Robert one moment ; neither his confusion nor his
joy at this great change, nor the benevolence so
naturally felt by almost everybody towards the mes-
senger of such good news, softened his voice or his
countenance in one word or look. Whatever ques-
tions Sir Robert asked him with regard to the council
being summoned, his being proclaimed, or other things
necessary immediately to be provided^ the King gave
him no other answer than ^^ Go to Ghiswick and take
your directions from Sir Spencer Compton."

This interview therefore was very short ; Sir Robert
went as commanded to Ghiswick, and the King and
Queen immediately to London.

As Sir Robert Walpole had not the least hope of
making his peace so far as to be employed in the new
reign, he did not endeavour to disguise to Sir Spencer
Compton any one circumstance that had passed at
Richmond, but naturally and openly told him : —

^^The King, Sir, has sent me to you in such a
manner as declares he intends you for his minister, and
has commanded me to receive all my instructions from
your mouth. It is what I as well as the rest of the
world expected would be whenever this accident hap-
pened. You have been the Prince's Treasurer ever

32 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. H.

since he came to England ; it is a natural promotion to
continue you upon his being King ; your services
entitle you to that mark of his favour, and your abilities
and experience in business will both enable you to
support the employment and justify him in bestowing
it Everything is in your hands; I neither could
shake your power if I would, nor would I if I could.
My time has been, yours is beginning ; but as we all
must depend in some degree upon our successors, and
that it is always prudent for these successors by way of
example to have some regard for their predecessors,
that with the measure they mete it may be measured
to them again — for this reason I put myself under your
protection, and for this reason I expect you will give
it I desire no share of power or business; one of
your white sticks,* or any employment of that sort, is
all I ask as a mark from the crown that I am not
abandoned to the enmity of those whose envy is the
only source of their hate, and who consequently will
wish you no better than they have done me the
moment you are vested with those honours and that
authority, the possession of which they will always
covet, and the possessor of which, of course, they will
always hate."

Sir Spencer Compton was at this time Speaker of
the House of Commons, Treasurer to the Prince, and
Paymaster to the army; he was a plodding, heavy
fellow, with great application, but no talents, and vast
complaisance for a Court without any address ; he was
always more concerned for the manner and form in

s Household officers — Chamberlain, Vice-Chamberlain, Steward, Trea-
surer, Cofferer, &c. — dbtinguished by carrying a white wand.

1727. NEW MINISTER. 33

which a thing was to be done than about the propriety
or expediency of the thing itself; and as he was calcu-
lated to execute rather than to project, for a subaltern
rather than a commander, so he was much fitter for a
clerk to a minister than for a minister to a Prince ;
whatever was resolved upon, he would often know how
properly to perform, but seldom how to advise what
was proper to be resolved upon. His only pleasures
were money and eating; his only knowledge forms
and precedents; and his only insinuation boMrs and
smiles.

But as he did not want pride or ambition, though he
wanted parts to feed them, he was extremely pleased
with this speech of Sir Bobert Walpole's, and looking
upon himself, dazzled with the lustre of so bright a
prospect, as possessed already of all the favour and
power of this new Court, he promised Sir Bobert Wal-
pole his protection ; and asked in return the assistance
of Sir Bobert*s experience to enlighten him on the
present state of affairs, and to instruct him in the future
conduct of them.

They went together forthwith to London, and first
to the Duke of Devonshire's,' who was then President
of the Council, but laid up with the gout and not able
to attend there. The Duke of Devonshire was a man
who had no uncommon portion of understanding; and
as his chief skill lay in painting, medals, and horses,
he was more able as a virtuoso than a statesman, and
a much better jockey than he was a politician. He
had a fair character, the dignity of a man of quality,

s William, second Duke— born about 1674— died in 1729.
VOL. I. D

34 LORD HERYET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. n.

and was justly more considered than most people of the
same great rapk and fortune (who, perhaps, had better
abilities), from having been always steady to his party
and constant to his friends.

There was nobody present at this meeting but these
two knights, the master of the house, my Lord Chan-
cellor King, Lord Trevor, keeper of the Privy Seal,
and Sir Paul Methuen, and all that was concerted
there was the common forms that were to be observed
in the meeting of the Council.

Whilst these things were regulating. Sir Spencer
Compton took Sir Bobert Walpole aside and desired
him, as a speech would be necessary on the occasion to
be made in council by the King, and as Sir Bobert
was so much more accustomed to this sort of compo-
sitions than himself, tiiat he would be so good to go
into another room and make forthwith a draught of
what would be proper for the King to say, whilst he
went to Leicester Fields to receive His Majesty's
commands.

Sir Bobert at first seemed to decline this olKce, but
Sir Spencer Compton insisting upon it as a favour to
him, Sir Bobert Walpole, who was the last man in
England he ought to have employed on this occasion,
undertook at his request tiiat which, if Sir Spencer
Compton had had common sense or foresight, he would
have known the better it was done the worse it would
be for himself.

That which made this step yet more absurd was, that
if this precedent^monger had only turned to the old
Gazettes published at the beginning of the former
reigns, he might have copied lull as good a declaration

1727. NBW MINISTER. 35

from these records as any Sir Robert Walpole could
give him.

Sir Boberty retiring into a room by himself went
immediately to work, and Sir Spencer Compton to
Leicester Fields^ where the King and Queen were
already arrived, and receiving the compliments of every
man of all degrees and all parties in the town ; tiie square
was thronged with multitudes of the meaner sort and
resounded with huzzas and acclamations^ whilst every
room in the house was filled with people of higher
rank, crowding to kiss their hands and to make the
earliest and warmest professions of zeal for their ser-
vice; but the common face of a Court at this time was
quite reversed, for as tiiere was not a creature in office,
excepting those who were his servants as Prince, who
had not the most sorrowfiil and dejected countenance
of distress and disappointment, so there was not one
out of employment who did not already exult with all
the insolence of the most absolute power and settled
prosperity.

As soon as Sir Spencer Compton had been with the
King in his closet, he returned to his coach through a
lane of bowers in the ante-chambers and on the stairs,
who were all shouldering one another to pay adoration
to this new idol, and knocking their heads together to
whisper compliments and petitions as he passed.

At his return to Devonshire House he found the
declaration for the King already drawn ; he approved
it, desired Sir Robert's leave to copy it, and begged
that he would not, even to the people in the next room,
say anything of his having done it: it was first read to
the company at Devonshire House, approved of there

d2

36 LOBD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. n.

without any objections, and then carried by Sir Spencer
Compton in his own hand-writing to the King. Sir
Robert followed to Leicester Fields, where he found
Sir Spencer Compton a good deal embarrassed by the
King's desiring him to alter one passage in the declara-
tion, which Sir Spencer wished should stand, and
which if he had not he did not know how to go about
to change. He desired Sir Robert to go into the King
and persuade him to leave it as it was originally drawn,
which office Sir Robert readily accepted, and was
thanked by Sir Spencer for the success he ought to
have apprehended.*

The council met, and the King's declaration there
was as follows : —

^< At the Court at Leicester House,
" 14th June, 1727.

^^The sudden and unexpected death of the King, my
dearest fether, has filled my heart with so much concern and
surprise that I am at a loss how to express myself upon this
grefit and melancholy occasion,

^^ I am sensible of the weight that immediately falls upon
me by taking the government of a nation so powerful at home
and of such influence and consequence abroad, but my loye
and afiection to this country, from my knowledge and expe-
rience of you, makes me resolve cheerfully to undergo all
difficulties for the sake and good of my people.

^^ The religion, laws, and liberties of the kingdom are most
dear to me, and the preservation of the constitution in Church
and State as it is now happily established, shall be my first and
always my chief care.

'^ And as the alliances entered into by the late King, my

4 This was the opportunity for the Queen's recommendation of Walpole :
<< She, a better judge than her husband of the capacities of the two men,
and who had silently watched for a proper moment for overturning the new
designations, did not lose a moment in observing to the King how preju-
dicial it would be to his affiurs to prefer a man in whose own judgment his
predecessor was the fittest person to execute the office."— JSemmucences.

1727. ASPECT OP THE COmiT. 37

father, with foreign powers have contributed to the restoring
the tranquillity and preserving the balance of Europe, I shall
endeavour to cultivate those alliances, and to improve and
perfect this great work for the honour, interest, and security
of my people.'*

The King stayed four days in town, during which
period Leicester House, which used to be a desert,
was thronged from morning to night, like the 'Change
at noon. But Sir Robert Walpole walked through
these rooms as if they had been still empty; his pre-
sence, that used to make a crowd wherever he ap-
peared, now emptied every corner he turned to, and
the same people who were officiously a week ago clear-
ing the way to flatter his prosperity, were now getting
out of it to avoid sharing his disgrace.* Everybody
looked upon it as sure, and whatever professions of
adherence and gratitude for former favours were made
him in private, there were none among the many his
power had obliged (excepting General Churchill and
Lord Hervey) who did not in public as notoriously
decline and fear his notice as they used industriously to
seek and covet it. These two men constantly attended
him, and never paid so much as the compliment of a
visit to Sir Spencer Compton, who had already opened
a levfee and received the solicitations of the whole world
as the only channel to the King's ear. Among these
herds was Mr. Dodington, one of the Lords of the

> '* My mother (says Horace Walpole)r, Sir Spencer's designation, and not
its eYaponttion, being known, could not make her way [to pay her respects
to the King and Queen] between the scornful backs and elbows of her late
devotees, nor could approach nearer to the Queen than the third or fourth
row ; but no sooner was she descried by her Majesty, than the Queen cried
aloud, ITtere 1 am sure 1 see a friend! The torrent divided and shrunk to
either side ; * and as I came away,' said my mother, * I might have walked
over their heads if I had pleased.' "— iZ^mwiwccnces.

38 LORD HERTEyS MEMOIRS. Chap. II.

Treasury, whose early application and distinguished
assiduity at this juncture to the supposed successor of
his former patron and benefactor was never forgiven/

Sir Bobert Walpole, his brother, Mr. Horace Wal-
pole, Ambassador to France, the Duke of Newcastle,
and Lord Townshend, the two Secretaries of State,
who were, properly speaking, the whole old administra-
tion at the death of the late King, expected themselves
and were expected by the whole world hourly to be
displaced.

The first of these the present King had, in the latter
years of his father's reign, called rogue and rascal^ with-
out much reserve, to several people, upon several occa-
sions ; to Horace Walpole he had as liberally and as
publicly dispensed the appellations of scoundrel and
fool ; and for the Duke of Newcastle, the King, when
Prince, had been so personally disobliged'' by him, that

^ This baseness of Dodington— a sample of his whole life — was the more
remarkable, because he had addressed a panegyrical epistle to Sir Robert,
in which he had promised — ^in a couplet sneered at by Pope— a very dif-
ferent conduct. '< I," he said,

'< To share thy adverse fate alone pretend ;
In power a servant, out of power a friend."

"7 This was a branch, and indeed the acme, of the quarrel between
Qeorge 1. and his son. << The Prince had intended his uncle, the Duke of
York, to be godfather, with the Kmg, to his second son, William, Duke of
Cumberland, bora 15th April, 1721. Nothing could equal the Prince's
indignation when the King named the Duke of Newcastle for the second
sponsor, and would hear of no other. The christening took place, as usual,
in the Princess's bedchamber. No sooner had the bishop closed the cere-
mony, than the Prince, crossing the foot of the bed, stepped up to the Duke
of Newcastle, and holding up his hand and forefinger in a menacing attitude,
said, ' You are a rascal, but I shall find you ;' meaning, in broken English,
' I shall find a time to be revenged.' The King was so provoked at this
outrage in his presence, that he pretended to understand it as a challenge,
and the Prince was actually put under arrest. The arrest was soon taken
off; but at night the Prince and Princess were ordered to leave St James's
Palace, and retired to the house of his chamberlain, the Earl of Grantham,
in Albemarle Street"— JZemmtscoices.

1727. ASPECT OP THE COXTET. 39

he had sworn a thousand times he never would forgive
him ; and^ joined to this resentment of the particular
injuries he thought he had received from him, he had,
as to his public character, his parliamentary abilities
and knowlec^e in business, the same just contempt
which most other people had contracted for his Grace,
either by their own observation or the deference they
paid to the opinion of the public. For Lord Towns-
hend, the King looked upon him as no more an honest
man than as an able minister ; and attributed to the
warmth of his temper and his scanty genius, the
strength of his passions and weakness of his under-
standing, all the present intricacy, uncertainty, and
confusion in the affairs of Europe.

The whole world knowing this to be His Majesty's
opinion of these four governors of this kingdom, that,
as I have just related, he used always to speak of the
first as a great rogue ; of die second, as a dirty buf-
foon f of the Hiird, as an impertinent fool ; and of the
fourth, as a choleric blockhead ; it was very natural
to expect the reins of power would not long be left in
their hands : and when Lord Malpas,* son-in-law to Sir
Bobert Walpole, was turned out of the Mastership of
the Bobes, and not in the softest manner, the day after
the King came to the crown — it was concluded he led
a dance which the rest were soon to follow.

If it had not been for the stupidity of Sir Spencer
Compton, who did not know his own strength, or what

8 The same terms that his nephew Horace often applies to him. He
was created Lord Walpole, and was the ancestor of the present house of
Orford.

9 George, third Lord Cholmondeley, married Sir Robert's only legiti-
mate daughter : their issue are Sir Robert's heirs, and inherit Houghton.

40 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IL

use to make of it^ they had all — but certainly at least
Sir Bobert Walpole — been displaced the very day after
the King came to the crown ; but as this awkward
statesman was either blind to his own interest or igno-
rant of his own power, he suffered that opportunity to
slip through his hands, which, if he had had skill to im-
prove, or resolution to seize, he might indisputably have
been what he was equally ambitious of and unfit for.

But as the King was not pressed to the taking of this
step, and that his Civil List (which was at present the
chief object in his view) was in less than a fortnight to
be settled in Parliament, he very naturally deferred any
change in the administration till that great and favourite
point was determined ; and that it might be adjusted to
his satisfaction with the unanimous concurrence of all
parties, he very prudently chose not to make the one
desperate, though he gave the others hopes ; and kept
the interest of every other body in suspense, that his
own might be pursued without opposition : though per-
haps, like many other refining historians, I attribute
tiiat to prudence which was only owing to accident —
two things often mistaken one for the other. But
whether it was the effect of policy or the natural conse-
quence of the present juncture of the affairs, whatever
was the cause of his conduct, this was certainly the
effect — that his postponing thus the gratification of his
resentment facilitated the success of his own affairs in
Parliament, gave him time to cool, the Queen time to
think, and Sir Bobert time to work.

One other very material reason which might induce
the King to suspend the change of his ministry I must
not omit here to relate. Mr. Walpole, who (as I be*

1721 INFLUENCE OP FRANCE. 41

fore observed) was ambassador in France at the de-
mise of the late King, immediately upon his receiving
the news of the King's death went to Versailles, to the
Cardinal de Fleury, then first minister, and got him
to write a letter to our new King, iull of assurances of
the inviolable fidelity with which he was determined
to adhere to all treaties and engagements entered into
with his father, provided the King on his part was in-
clined to act on the same plan, and to pursue the same
measures, that his father had done ; and as the interest
both of France and England at this important critical
juncture depended on the harmony and good under-
standing which he wished to preserve between the two
kingdoms, he hoped His Majesty would not give the
other powers of Europe such an advantage over them
as to weaken that union which might give laws to the
rest of the world whilst it subsisted, but must expose
the two kingdoms to receive laws firom others whenever
it was broken.

With this letter Mr, Walpole arrived in England
the Sunday after the news came of the King's death
[June ISth] ; and though his coming was not the only
tiling that turned the scale in favour of the old mi-
nistry, yet it certainly threw in a considerable weight
whilst it was in balance.

On the 19th the Court removed to Kensington,
where the King, by the audiences that were asked and
the oflers that were made to him by the great men of all
denominations, found himself set up at auction, and
every one bidding for his favour at the expense of the
public.

The greatest offer, and the most infamous for the

42 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Craf. H.

bidder, was made by that affected patriot Mr. Pulteney,
who proposed to the King the same 800,000/. per
year for his Civil List which was afterwards given,
with the additional advantage — ^which was not given —
of taking off that tax of sixpence in the pound on
all Civil List salaries and pensions, and charging
the Sinking Fund, in lieu of the Civil List establish-
ment,„with that 30,000/. a year.^^

The saddling ihe Sinking Fund with this tax would
certainly have been detrimental to the nation, as it
must of course have protracted its debts by lessening
the sum appropriated for the payment of them ; nor
was it very politicly calculated even for the purpose
it was designed for. As it would only have increased a
little the salaries of the King's servants, without being
any gain to the King himself His Majesty, whose
avarice he sought to tickle and allure by this proposal^
was not likely to be much obliged by it.

And now the great stroke of displacing Sir Robert
Walpole being so long suspended, his enemies began to
fear, and his friends to hope, that this protracted re-
prieve might at last turn into an absolute pardon.
Whilst it hung in this equilibrium Sir Robert Walpole
received the following letter from an unknown hand : —

''I am one of the many you have obliged,^^ and one of the
few that will never forget it. My gratitude for these obliga-
tions, and the desire I have to do you service, is the sole

10 Here seems some mistake : 6d. in the pound on the whole Civil List
would have been but 20,000/. a year ; and as it was payable only on salaries,
pensions, &c., it would have been proportionably less.

11 It appears subsequently that Loni Hervey had a pension of 1000/. —
but would have preferred ojficey and was, I think, disappointed and vexed
at not being included in Sir Robert's official arrangements. He soon after
went to Italy, where he remamed for a year and a-half.

1727. ANONYMOUS LETTER. 43

oocasdon of this letter ; nor haye I so mean an opinion of your
nnderstanding, or so good a one of my own, as to imagine that,
at this yery important crisis, you can want my adyice how to
act. But though you are too skilful to want counsel, yet the
most skilful may want intelligence : and there are certainly
schemes on foot to impose upon you. The new King's sole
thought and care at present is the establishment of his Ciyil
List^ which he is advised.. (and perhaps by your chief anta-
gonist) to commit to your care. He is told that your appre-
hensions are such that at this juncture you dare refuse him
nothing; that some hopes thrown in, and a show of favour, will
bind you still faster to his interest ; in short, the Queen speaks
to you through his mouth : but this point once settled, you
are to be dropt ; neither would you be allowed this share in
the administration, but that in case their demands should be
thought exorbitant, you may incur all the odium with the
people, though you are to be deprived of all the merit towards
the King. Others are to have the advantage of disposing of
this money, though you are to undergo all the unpopular diffi-
culty of providing it. You are to plough the field, and others
are to reap and distribute the harvest. It is already given out
that you are bidding with the public money to buy your peace
with the King : in a word, Lord Sunderland's policy in 1720
is re'rived :^' may it have the same fate ; and end as much to
your advantage as it is designed for your ruin. I have no
notion but, where you have access, you must have credit, and
that your being esteemed must always be the consequence of
your being heard. The things I have here told you, came
to my knowledge merely by accident, and the babbling in-
discretion of a fool who wishes you ill. Your enemies un-
doubtedly take this to be your present situation at court;
whether well founded in their opinion or not, I know not All
happiness, success^ and prosperity attend you. If this letter

IS This alludes to Walpole's having been employed by Sunderland's
ministry in 1720 to extricate the finances of the country from the diffi-
culties created by the South Sea bubble. It seems from this hint that
Sunderland had hoped that Walpole'a popularity might be damaged by
that oommisBion.

44 LOBD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XL

proves of any use to you, I shall be glad ; if it b of none,
I shall not be ashamed, because you will never know from
whence it comes. And I am sure I mean it well."

This letter Sir Robert Walpole afterwards found out
had been written by Lord Hervey. Sir Robert erased
that passage where it said ^^ The Queen speaks to you
through the King's mouth,*' and then showed the letter
to the Queen, to let her know what his friends thought
and the world said of his present situation. The Queen
assured him she believed no man so capable of serving
the King as himself; that her interest, if she had any,
should never be employed for any other body ; that she
was sure the King's intentions were to continue him ;
and that she thought the term of " policy " given in that
letter to the scheme suggested to be at present the
foundation of the King's seeming favour to Sir Robert
Walpole, would be much too soft a word for so much
deceit and treachery. When the King desired Sir
Robert Walpole to fix the Civil List revenue in the
way I shall presently relate, he took him by the hand,
and among many other things that he said, intimating
his designs to continue him in his service, he made use
of this very strong expression : " Consider^ Sir Robert^
what makes me ea^ in this m/itter will prove for your
ease too; it is for my life it is to be fixed, and it is for
your life.''

On the 27th June the Parliament met, when the Civil
List, unopposed by any body but Mr. Shippen,^'* the

18 William Shippen, of the Middle Temple, was in ParliamOTt (with
one short interval) from 1707 to 1748. In 1717 he was sent to the Tower
for saying that <' the second paragraph of the King^s speech seemed rather
calculated for the meridian of Germany tlum Great Britain. Hie King is
a stranger to our language and constitution,** In allusion to this plain
speaking, Pope calls him *' Downright Shippen*^

1727. CrVIL LIST. 45

head of the veteran stanch Jacobites, was settled m the
following manner : — ^The produce of those fiinds that
had been tied down for the provision of 700,000/.
a year on the late King, and 100,000/. more on the
Prince of Wales, was now given entirely to the present
King, without a deduction of 100,000/. to the present
Prince of Wales, but leaving the provision for him to
the discretion and generosity of his father,^* and without
giving the overplus of 800,000/. to the Sinking Fund,
which was the use to which the surplus of these fimds
in the late reign was appropriated after the 700,000il
was paid : so that this King had the whole produce of
these, which was then computed at an average to
amount to 900,000/. a year ; and if that computation
had proved true, the Civil List of this King would have
been, by 200,000/. a year, a greater revenue than any
King of England was ever known to have before. The
ridiculous reasons given for this exorbitant augmentation
of it were, the expense of a wife and a great many chil-
dren— as if no King of England before had ever been
married, or to a pregnant wife ; and the other sensible
argument was, things being so much dearer than they
used to be, and consequently housekeeping so much
more expensive ; — good excuses for a farmer's backward-
ness in paying his rent, but not things that could be
much felt in the manner of living of a king: but

14 The cause, or at least a reasonable excuse, of this difference, may
have been that George II. came over at his father's accession, at the age
of thirty-one, with his wife and daughters, and necessarily required a
separate establishment. Prince Frederic, on the contrary, was at his father's
accession about twenty, a bachelor, had not yet come to England — and,
in &ct, did not arrive for near a year and a-half later, when he was created
Prince of Wales,

46 LORD HERYETS MEBiOIRS. Chap. n.

unreasonable as it was thought to settle the Civil List
in this extrayagant manner, yet the bill passed the
House of Commons without one negative but Mr.
Shippen's. No one thought it reasonable, yet no one
opposed it; no one wished for it, and no one voted
against it: and I believe it is the single instance that
can be given, of a question carried there, without two
opponents or well-wishers.

At the same time the Queen's jointure was settled ;
for the provision of which, in this fit of generosity, these
firugal dispensers of the people's money were pleased to
bestow upon her, besides Somerset-House and Rich-
mond-Lodge, 100,000/. a year, which was just double
what any Queen of England had ever had before; to
such a pitch of extravagance did these contending par-
liamentary bidders raise the price of Comrt iavour at
this royal auction."

When these two great and laudable works were per-
fected, the old Parliament was to be dissolved and
a new one chosen. It was at their dismission, that the
decisive stroke was struck in the contention for power
between Sir Robert Walpole and Sir Spencer Compton :
the King had ordered &em both to make him a speech,
and when he came to choose, shook his head at poor
Sir Spencer's, and approved of Sir Robert's.

The only two things that were done during this short
interregnum of Sir Robert Walpole's, contrary to his
inclination, were, first, the displacing of his son-in-law.
Lord Malpas, which I have already mentioned ; and,
secondly, the turning a Sir William Yonge, a known
creature of his, out of the Commission of Treasury.

ift The Jomttire vote passed nan. can,, and so did the Civil List BiB.

1727. YpNGB. 47

The King used always to call him *^ Stinking Yonge/'
and had conceived and expressed such an insurmount-
able dislike to his person and character, that no interest
nor influence was potent enough at this time to prevail
with His Majesty to continue him.

Sir William Yonge was certainly a very remarkable
instance how much character and reputation depend
sometimes on unaccountable accidents and the caprice
of mankind ; and an undeniable exception to what I
think (some few cases excepted) a pretty general rule —
that is, that however prejudiced some particulars may
be for, and others against, such men in public stations
and characters, yet the true merit of such men com-
monly finds and settles its own weight, as much as any
commodity in a market ; and is generally rated accord-
ing to its real value in public opinion, as much as the
other in public sale.

I acknowledge Sir William Yonge an exception to
this maxim ; for, without having done anything that I
know of remarkably profligate — anything out of the
common track of a ductile courtier and a parliamen-
tary tool — his name was proverbially used to express
everything pitiful, corrupt, and contemptible.^^ It is
true he was a great liar, but rather a mean than a
vicious one. He had been always constant to the same
party; he was good-natured and good-humoured —
never offensive in company; nobody's friend — ^nobody's
enemy. He had no wit in private conversation ; but

14 Sir Robert Walpole used to say of him, that nothing but so bad a cha-
racter could have kept down his talents, and notlung but his talents ha?e
kept up his character. Both Horace Walpole and Lord Henrey seem to
have been strongly prejudiced against Yonge ; and Pope makes many dia-
parag^g allusions to him.

48 LORD HEBVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. n.

was remarkably quick in taking hints to harangue
upon in Parliament ; he had a knack of words there
that was surprising, considering how little use they
were to him anywhere else. He had a great command
of what is called parliamentary language, and a talent
of talking eloquently without a meaning, and expa-
tiating agreeably upon nothing, beyond any man, I
belieye, that ever had the gift of speech.

These advantages made him very useful to Sir
Robert Walpole, who caressed him without loving him,
and employed him without trusting him ; but the ichxt
even of this great minister's favour could neither whiten
Sir William Yonge's character nor keep him in em-
ployment: the one was, in my opinion, unreasonably
run down, and the other unreasonably taken from him ;
for he had done nothing at all to deserve to forfeit the
latter, and nothing more to deserve to lose the first,
than what a thousand other people had done without
losing either. However, Sir Robert advised him, upon
this disgrace, to be patient, not clamorous — to sub-
mit, not resent or oppose — to be as subservient to
the Court in attendance, and give the King his assist-
ance as constantly and as assiduously in Parliament as
if he was paid for it : telling him and all the world what
afterwards proved true, that whatever people might
imagine, Yonge was not sunk, he had only dived, and
would yet get up again."

This was the single alteration made af);er the disso*
lution of the Parliament, contrary to the will and

17 He was re-appointed to the Treasury in 1780, and thenoe promoted to
be Secretary-at-War in 1785, which he held till 1746. He was the father
of Sir Greorge Yonge, also Secretary-at-War in 1796. The fiither and son
represented Honiton in thirteen successive parliaments.

1727. LORD BERKELEY. 49

representation of SirBobert Walpole; and though this
was a proof that he was forced to bend in one instance,
yet every other change demonstrated his influence.

His son-in-law, Lord Malpas, was put into the Admi-
ralty ; his great rival and enemy, Mr. Pulteney, denied
leave to stand candidate upon the interest of the Court
for Westminster — never consulted in the closet, and
always very coldly received in the Drawing-room 5 a
wholeraceofChetwynds," Sir KobertWalpole's declared
ill-wishers, were turned out in a lump ; and, what was
reckoned the strongest demonstration of his power,
Lord Berkeley removed from the head of the Admi-
ralty, and Lord Torrington appointed to succeed him.
Lord Berkeley was the admiral who brought the late
King over; bom and educated a stanch Whig, and
had never deviated a moment one step of his life from
these principles. He had been of the late King's bed-
chamber, and at the head of the fleet during all the late
reign. He was a man of great family and great quality,
rough, proud, hard, and obstinate, with excellent good
natural parts, but so uncultivated that he was totally
ignorant of every branch of knowledge but his pro-
fession. He was haughty and tyrannical, but honour-
able, gallant, observant of his word; but equally in-
capable of flattering a prince, bending to a minister, or
lying to anybody he had to deal with. Lord Torring-
ton was more supple and more tractable ; he had re-
ceived the honour of peer^e in the late reign as a

18 Lord Chetwynd from the Rangership of St. James's Park~ William
Chetwynd from the Admiralty— John from the Board of Trade, &c. It
appears by a complaining letter from Lady Chetwynd in the Suffolk Cor.
(i. 151) that they had put their trust in Sir Spencer Compton and Mrs.
Howard.

VOL. I. E

50 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. II.

reward for an action, for which he ought to have lost
his head — which was his attacking, without orders
countersigned by a Secretary of State, the Spanish fleet
in the Mediterranean, in favour pf the Emperor, of
whom our King wanted to buy, with Sicily, the in-
vestiture of Bremen and Verden ; which, by the by,
he was never able to obtain. Voltaire, in his * History
of Charles XII. of Sweden,* says, " Le Koi George
n'avoit aucun but en toutes ses actions que la possession
de ces deux places, sur lesquelles il n'avoit aucun droit,
que de les avoit achete a vil prix au^ Danois, a qui
elles n'appartenaiebt pas.*'

Lord Torrington, who knew the late King's mind,
and never had *^ aucun but pour aucune action " but the
making his court and his fortune, undertook this affair
in the Mediterranean upon very unsafe and unwarrant-
able clandestine orders, transmitted to him from the
late King, through the hands of Bemsdor^ his Ger-
man minister. Lord Torrington succeeded, beat the
Spaniards, put the Emperor in possession of Sicily, got
vast sums of money, cheated the jailors, and returned
home, thanked, caressed, and rewarded, instead of
being censured, broke, or hanged ; which, indisputably^
he ought to have been, for risking an English fleet with-
out a legal English authority.^*

19 This is altogether a mistake, into which, I see by old Lord Bristol's
letters, that he may have led Lord Hervey, who was himself too young to
ha?e been acquainted with the details of the aflSur. It appears from * An
Account of the Eorpeditiony jre., published in 1739 (which is confirmed
by official documents), that Sir George Byng had regular oniers from the
Admiralty, dated 12th May, 1718, to follow such instructions as he should
receive from his Majesty through his Secretary of State — a form not unusual
for matters in which great secrecy or despatch might be necessary. These
instructions were signed by the King on the 26th May, and officially con-

1727. LORD TORBWGTON. 51

This was the man appointed to succeed Lord
Berkeley. He had been in his youth a resolute, able,
enterprising fellow; mercenary and knowing in his
business; but now so declining in a very advanced
age, that the edge of all these qualities, except his
avarice, was pretty well blunted. He was now nothing
more than an inferior man, weakened both in body and
mind, neither able to execute or project any great
things, and fit only to direct in the common routine of
the sea affairs, which long experience in that business
made him as capable of as any other man in the fleet
And as there had always been a jealousy, and no very
cordial friendship, between him and Lord Berkeley, I
believe Lord Torrington was pitched upon for this post,
not so much from desiring to show him favour as to
embitter Lord Berkeley's di^ace. The little friend-
ship Lord Berkeley had ever professed to Sir Bobert
Walpole, and the little complaisance he had ever shown
him, were certainly very natural reasons for Sir Bobert
to dislike, and to desire to remove him; and Lord
Berkeley's great intimacy with and attachment to Lord
Bolingbroke were the means he put into Sir Bobert's
hands to overturn his interest with the King, who mor-
tally hated Lord Bolingbroke and everybody that had
to do with him.*^

veyed to Byng by Mr. Secretary Craggs, in a letter dated the 27th, which
states that they had been personally discussed the day before between the
Admiral, Lord Sunderland, Lord Stanhope, and Craggs. There is no trace
of any Hanoverian minister in the afihir. — See CampbelTi Adm,^ vr, 433.

so Horace Walpole gives an explanation of this disgrace very different,
and so strange as to be hardly credible : <' On the death of George I.,
Queen Caroline found in his cabinet a proposal of the Earl of Berkeley, then,
I think, First Lord of the Admiralty, to seize the Prince of Wales, and con-
vey him to America, whence he should never be heard of more. George I.
was too humane to listen to such an atrocious deed." — Bemmiscences.

E 2

52 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. II.

However, this incident, as well as every other mate-
rial occurrence at this time, proved to all mankind that
the little transient interruption that diverted the stream
of Sir Kobert's power was now borne down ; and that
the current was brought back again and flowed quietly
in its former channel. It was now understood by every-
body that Sir Robert was the Queen's minister ; that
whoever he favoured, she distinguished ; and whoever
she distinguished, the King employed. His reputed
mistress Mrs. Howard, and the Speaker his reputed
minister, were perceived to be nothing ; and Mr. Pul-
teney and Lord Bolingbroke, in the algebraical phrase,
less than nothing : that is, it appeared very plain that
his Majesty had no political regard for the first, no
opinion of the capacity of the second, a dislike for the
conduct of the third, and an abhorrence for the cha-
racter of the last

But as Sir Spencer Compton had conceived too
strong hopes of being Sir Robert's superior ever to
serve in the House of Commons quietly under him, and
that it might be dangerous, consequently, to sufier him
in the chair of a new Parliament, Sir Robert advised
the making him a peer; accordingly he was created
Baron of Wilmington ; and on this occasion, I think,
he might have said, like Agrippina, the mother of Nero,
in Racine's * Britannicus,' —

*^ Tout ces pr^genSj hdku ! irriteni man d^pU,
Je vats mes hanneurs eraUre, et tomber man cMU**

It was just his case ; but he did not seem to feel the ridi-
cule or the contemptibleness of his situation : that snow-
ball levee of his, which had opened and that gathered
so fast, melted away at as quick a pace ; his visionary

1727. MRS. HOWARD. S3

prospects of authority and grandeur vanished into air ;**
and yet he seemed just as well satisfied to be bowing
and grinning in the antechamber, possessed of a lucrative
employment without credit, and dishonoured by a title
which was the mark of his disgrace, aa if he had been
dictating in the closet, sole fountain of Court favour
at home, and regulator of all the niational transactions
abroad.

Mrs, Howard (afterwards Countess of Suffolk) felt
her situation in a very different manner ; and though
she was too wise and too prudent to have given herself
the air of a favourite, without feeling she was so, or to
have affected the appearance of power, without knowing
whether she should be able to maintain it; yet, without
doubt, she had tried her strength in private, and was
mortified to find she had tried it to so little purpose,*'
well knowing that some degree of contempt would
attend the not having what in her situation the world
would expect her to have, though she had never pre-
tended to be possessed of it ; and that a mistress who
could not get power was not a much more agreeable or
respectable character than a minister who could not
keep it

21 Swift, in one of his pla3rftil letters to Patty Blant, alludes to the state
of abandonment in which poor Sir Spencer was left:— ''Uow will you
pass this summer, for want of a squire to Ham Common or Walpole's Lodge ?
— for as to Richmond Lodge and Marble Hill, they are abandoned as much
OB Sir Spencer Campton,"

^ This, though also so stated in the ' Reminiscences,' seems not quite
exact The Jirit peer of the first batch made by the new King was Mrs.
Howard's brother. Sir John Hobart ; and while endeavouring to accom-
plish this great object for her own family, she was probably little inclined
to risk her favour or her interest for the political objects of persons with
whom she had no other tie than social acquaintance. See the Biographical
Notice to the Suffolk Papers.

54 LORD HERVBTS MEMOIRS. Ciiap. II.

Mrs. Howard was of a good family, but of so nu-
merous a one, that her fortune originally was a very
small one.** She was sister to Lord Hobart, and had
been married very young to Mr. Howard, a wrong-
headed, ill-tempered, obstinate, drunken, extravagant,
brutal younger brother of the Earl of Suffolk's family.
This ill-matched, unfortunate couple were in a few years
reduced to such low circumstances that they could not
remain in England, and went, almost in despair, to
make their court and seek their fortune, in Queen
Anne^s time, at Hanover. Mrs. Howai'd was there
taken into the present Queen's service, and laid the
foundation of that interest (such as it is) which she is
now possessed of Though the present Ring was never
then said to think of her as a mistress, and when, im-
mediately upon his first coming over, he attached him-
self to Mrs. Bellenden,** a Maid of Honour to the
Princess, Mrs. Howard was always third of that party,
and upon a very diflerent foot irom that on which her
correspondence with the King is now thought to stand.
Mrs. Bellenden, who was afterwards married to Co-
lonel Campbell, was incontestably the most agreeable,
the most insinuating, and the most likeable woman of
her time ; made up of every ingredient likely to engage
or attach a lover. But as she had to do with a man in-
capable of being engaged by any charm but habit, or
attached to any woman but his wife ; a man who was

ss Horace Walpole also calls her fortune "a deader one;^ but she had
6000/., — no inoonsidenble sum in those days.

S4 Mary, youngest daughter of the second Lord Bellenden. Her hus-
band became after her death fifth Duke of Argyll. See more of this
charming woman (celebrated also by Gay and Pope) in the RemwUcenceg
and the Suffolk Correspondence,

1727. MARY dELLENDEN. 55

better pleased with the air of an intrigue than any other
part of it — and who did not care to pay a valuable
consideration even for that^-she began to find out that
her situation was only having the scandal of being the
Prince's mistress without the pleasure, and the confine^
ment without the profit: she, therefore, very wisely,
resolved to wididraw her own neck as well as she could,
little by little, out of this unpleasant yoke; and by
this conduct she left Mrs. Howard, who had more
steadiness and more perseverance, to try what she
could make of a game which the other had found so
tedious and so unprofitable, that she had no pleasure
in playing it, and saw little to be won by continu-**
ing it

The Prince passed, every evening of his life, three
or four hours in Mrs. Howard's lodging, who, as dresser
to the Princess, always in waiting, was lodged all the
year round in the Court. Mrs. Bellenden continued to
be now and then of these parties, till she married
[about 1720], but after that time these visits became
uninterrupted tSte-h-tStes with Mrs. Howard, that sub-
sist to this hour ; and yet I know many of those who
are most conversant and best acquainted with the in-
trigues, anecdotes, and transactions of this Court, who
doubt, notwithstanding these appearances, the King's
ever having entered into any commerce with her, that
he might not innocently have had with his daughter.
It is certain that nobody belonging to the Court ever
believed he had succeeded with Mrs. Bellenden; and
though all appearances (the duration of them excepted)
were exactly the same with regard to both these ladies,
yet there are many people (which seems very unac-

56 LORD H£RY£Y*S MEMOIRS. Chap. U.

countable) who never suspected his success with the
one, and never doubted it with the other.**

Mrs. Howard had the misfortune of hearing so ill
that the quickness of her apprehension was in mixed
companies of little use to her ; for, unless the conver-
sation was particularly addressed to her, and in a tone
of voice much above the common pitch of speaking,
she had no share in it : so that by this infirmity she
was deprived not only of the pleasure but the advan-
tage of the ordinary commerce of public and general
acquaintance, and lost half the benefit of the many
qualifications she possessed, so necessary to a thorough
•good companion, and so rarely united in one person.
Good sense, good breeding, and good nature were
qualities which even her enemies could not deny her ;
nor do I know any one good or agreeable quality which
those who knew her more intimately would not as
readily allow her. She was civil to everybody, friendly
to many, and unjust to none : in short, she had a good
head and a good heart, but hdd to do with a man who
was incapable of tasting the one or valuing the other.*^

S3 I noticed, m the Preface to the Suffolk Papers, with perhaps too
much indulgence, the opinion that the friendship between the King and
Mrs. Howard was platonic; but I am somewhat surprised to find Lord
Hervey countenancing the same paradox, as I must candidly call it. The
account that both he and H. Walpole give of the matter seems veiy strange
— that the Prince should have waited for the marriage of Miss Bellenden
to attach himself to a lady who had been in his family for so many years
before he ever saw Miss Bellenden. It is more probable that the attach-
ment began earlier.

s« This is a large encomium from Lord Henney, who was of the opposite
faction in Court. Horace Walpole relates—as we shall see Lord Hervey
also does— that when the Queen rather opposed Lady Sufiblk's leaving the
Court, the King complained to her that she ** would not let him part with
a deaf old woman that he was weary of." — Hemmiscences. Pope turned
the infirmity to a compliment : —

«*Has

1727. MRS. HOWARD. 57

When the King came to the crown, Mrs. Howard was
about forty years old,*^ an age not proper to make con-
quests, though perhaps the most likely to maintain them,
as the levity of desiring new ones is by that time gene-
rally pretty well over, and the maturity of those quali-
ties requisite to rivet old ones in their fullest perfection ;
for when the beauty that creates passion begins to decay,
women commonly look out for some preservative charms
to substitute in its place ; they begin to change their
notion of their right to being adored, into that of think-
ing a little complaisance and some good qualities as
necessary to attach men as a little beauty and some
agreeable qualities are to allure them ; and as experi-
ence teaches them that the insolence and negligence of
security often loses what the humility and circumspection
of diffidence helps them to preserve, so they begin to
find out that a solicitude to oblige is as essential to a
woman's being loved and esteemed, as a capacity of
pleasing is to her being Uked and admired.^ Mrs. How-
ard was so sensible of this truth, that her conduct tal-
lied exactly with these sentiments ; but notwithstanding
her making use of the proper tools, the stuff she had to
work with was so stubborn and so inductile that her
labour was in vain, and her situation was such as would
have been insupportable to any one whose pride was less

« Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir?
Yes, she has one, I must aver :
When all the world conspire to pnuse her,
The woman *8 deaf^ and will not hear."

57 She was bom, it seems, about lWS.—Si(ffM Papers^ vol. i. p. v. The
Kmg was forty-four.

58 See Dean Swift's Charade of Mrs. Howard, and the explanation of
H. Wal pole's misapprehension and misrepresentation on that subject which
hod been adopted by all succeeding y/ni/sn,— Suffolk Correspondence^
vol. i. p. zzxvii.

58 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. U.

supple, whose passions less governable, and whose suf-
ferance less inexhaustible ; for she was forced to live in
the constant subjection of a wife with all the reproach
of a mistress ; to flatter and manage a man whom she
must see and feel had as little inclination to her person
as regard to her advice ; and added to this she had the
mortification of knowing the Queen's influence so much
superior to hers, that the little show of interest she
maintained was only a permitted teniure dependent on a
rival who could have overturned it any hour she pleased.
But the Queen, knowing the vanity of her husband's
temper, and that he must have some woman for the
world to believe his mistress, wisely suffered one to re-
main in that situation whom she despised and had got
the better of, for fear of making room for a successor
whom he might really love, and that might get the bet-
ter of her. On the other hand, Mrs. Howard was in
the right to continue there even on this foot, since she
could not put herself on any better ; for though she had
not all the advantages which the sole mistress to a king
might expect, yet it enabled her at least to gain that very
material point of bettering her fortune; and the ex-
changing indigence and distress for alBBuence and pros-
perity was a consideration that no doubt often comforted
her in the many mortifications, disappointments, and
rebukes which her ambition met with when she endea-
voured to join the ^clat and power of a king's mistress
to those less agreeable appurtenances of that character,
the scandal and confinement.^

However, these quotidian visits which his Majesty

S0 Compare H. Walpole's portrait and diaracter of Mrs. Howard in the

1727. THE QtJEEN'S INFLTJENCE. 59

when Prince was known to bestow upon her, of so many
hours in the four-and-twenty, and for so many years
together, had made many superficial courtiers conclude
that one who possessed so large a portion of his time
must have some share in his heart. This way of rea-
soning induced many to make their court to her, and
choose that channel to recommend themselves to the
Prince. The most considerable of those who had done
so were the Duke of Argyle, Lord Isla his brother, the
Duke of Dorset, and Lord Wilmington, who none of
them could persuade themselves of such inconsistencies
and absurdities in any man's character, as to imagine
the Prince could give all his leisure hours to a pretty
and agreeable l^oman who had no weight in his coun-
sels ; nor was it more reasonable for them to imagine
that any man would be so absolutely governed by his
wife who took the liberty, in appearance at least, of
being devoted to her chamber-maid ; or to believe that
he Would receive no impressions in private but from
the opinion of a woman whom he took such frequent
opportunities to snub, rebuke, and contradict, whenever
she delivered it before any standers by.

Whilst the King was Prince there Were so few occa-
sions for the Queen to show her credit with him, that
some were apt to imagine this latent dormant power
was much less than it proved itself when the time came
that made it worth her while to try, show, and exert it
But as soon as ever the Prince became King, the whole
world began to find out that her will was the sole spring
on which every movement in the Court turned : and
though his Majesty lost no opportunity to declare that
the Queen never meddled with his business, yet nobody

60 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. II.

was simple enough to believe it ; and few besides him-
self would have been simple enough to hope or imagine
it could be believed, since everybody who knew there
was such a woman as the Queen, knew she not only
meddled with business, but directed everything that
came under that name, either at home or abroad.
Her power was unrivalled and unbounded — ^how dearly
she earned it will be the subject of future consideration
in these papers.

At present, as everybody will be curious to learn
what could induce the King to continue an adminis-
tration whose every step he had disapproved, and heap
favour on men whom he had so lately loaded with re-
proach— what motives he could have to lodge power
in the hands of those whom he had heretofore so fre-
quently and openly censured for the abuse of it ; and
how he as King came to consult those whom he never
would speak to as Prince; and to admit no farther
than the drawing-room at St. James's those favourites
who had ever been of the cabinet at Leicester-House :
in short — how he came to pursue the very same mea-
sures in his own reign which he had been constantly
censuring and exploding in his father's; — since every
one, I say, will be curious to learn what could give so
unexpected a turn to his Majesty's way of thinking, talk-
ing, and acting, I shall relate all the different ways I
heard of accounting for it at the time it happened ; but
whether any of the reasons given were the real ones, or
whether all of them accumulated had some share in this
event, I shall not pretend to determine.

For my own part, I have the conduct of princes in
so little veneration, that I believe they'act yet oftener

1727. ESTIMATE OF STATESMEN. 61

without design than other people, and are insensibly
drawn into both good and bad situations without know-
ing how they came there. Those authors and com-
mentators, then, must oftener than any others lose
their time and their labour who will always be looking
out for great causes to great events^ by neglecting
trifles they overlook truth, and by continual examens
lose what they seek. I hold Epicurus's opinion of the
system of the universe so strong with regard to almost
all political revolutions in it, and think the fortuitous
influence of chance so much more decisive of the
success or miscarriage of statesmen's schemes, than
the skill or dexterity of the most able and most artful
of them, that I am apt to attribute much less to the
one, and much more to the other, than the gene-
rality of historians, either from prejudice to their
heroes or partiality to their own conjectures, are willing
to allow. I think most of these political contenders for
profit and power are, like Catiline and Caesar, actuated
by the same principles of ambition and interest^ and that
as their success determines their characters, so accident
determines their success. Had Caesar fallen in the
plains of Fharsalia, like Catiline in those of Pistoia,
they had both been remembered in the same manner ;
the different fortune of those battles is what alone con-
stitutes the different characters of these two men, and
makes the one always mentioned as the first and the
other as the last of mankind.

But to return to our English history. Some were of
opinion that Sir Robert Walpole's continuance was
owing merely to the Speaker's want of resolution to
displace him, he apprehending himself unequal to the

J

t

62 tORP HBBVEY'S MEMOIRS* Chap. H,

charge, and fearing to undertake what he should not be
able to execute with credit, consequently not able to
maintain for any time. Others imagine that he thought
it would always be in his power to take the reins into his
own hand, and only left them in Sir Bobert Walpole'a
till his rival had driven through the dirty road of the
Civil List ; proposing by these means, that whatever
odium was incurred by that regulation, it might all fall
on Sir Robert's shoulders, without sullying the rising
lustre of those ministers who would, after this was over,
take the whole conduct and direction of affairs in the
new system.'®

Others think that Sir Robert found means to gain
the Queen,'^ by making all his court solely to her, and
that he did not weaken his interest with her by add-
ing those two agreeable bribes of making her jointure
(as before related) just double what had ever been given
to a Queen of England before ; and persuading the King
to make her present establishment 60,000Z. a year,
which would have been 20,000/. more than the Speaker
had given her, who proposed putting her establishment
on the same footing with King Charles II/s Queen.
Sir Robert's solicitation, and the King's economy, split
this difference, and settled her revenue at 50,0QQ/.,

so Coze states, on the authority of Sir Robert, from the Etoiigh Papers,
that Compton himself declined the King's pressing offer on the score of
incapacity ; but it seems as if this was only a civil mode of allowing him the
honour of refusing what the King had now resolved not to bestow.

81 The WdlpoHana date Sir Robert's favour with the Queen earlier ;
stating that the Princess was angry with him for having called her in his
coarse way a fat bitch — but that on the question of her jointure as Princess^
60,0001. being proposed, 8ir Robert moved and obtained 100,000^., upon
which she good*humouredly sent him word that " the fat bitch had for-
given him." — $ 104. But this must be inaccurate. It was npt as Princess^
but as Queen, that the 100,00<V. jointure was granted.

1727. QUEEN'S VIEWS. 63

which was still 10,000/* more than any other Queen Con-
sort had ever had, or the Speaker had cut out for her.
Besides this, as Sir Spencer Compton and his reputed
adherents had always in the late reign made their
court more to Mrs. Howard than the Princess, it was
not thought unlikely that her Royal Highness, as soon
as she was Queen, might be influenced a little by her
own resentment, though she persuaded the King to
stifle his, and like to punish the neglect these people
had been guilty of towards her by letting them feel
their error, and at once showing them her own power,
Mrs. Howard's impotence, and their mistake.

Whether or no these reasons induced the Queen to
make choice of Sir Bobert may be disputable, but it is
an undoubted fact that she did make choice of him, and
that by her influence the King — without getting the
better of his dislike to him, at least at first— employed
him.

It is very probable that when he talked to the King
and Queen upon business (which it was necessary for
him at %rst to do, in order to acquaint them with the
situation of affairs), that they found him much more
clear, more sensible, and more intelligible than the rest
of them, and consequently believed him more able ;
that when he came to tell his own tale, to plead his own
cause, and to describe the steps he had taken at home
and abroad, in his own colours, the King and the Queen
did not think his measures so ill-concerted, or the
affairs of the nation in so bad a posture as his enemies
had represented, and they perhaps expected to find
them.

The arguments the Queen made use of in his behalf

64 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. II.

to the King, to be sure were, that his loDg experience
and approved abilities would certainly enable him to
serve the King better than any other body ; that his
being so much in their power would also make him
more humble and submissive than any other minister ;
that his having made a vast fortune already would make
him less solicitous about his own interest, and more at
liberty to mind the King's, than any that could succeed
him ; that new leeches would not be less hungry, and
that whoever the King employed would at first be look-
ing only after gain^ and treading those paths which most
people frequent at their entrance into power : whereas
Sir Robert Walpole's fortune being already made, he
would have nothing in view but the obliging his prince
and securing the government, in order for him and his
family to possess what he had already acquired in safety
and tranquillity.'* This being the case, no doubt she
told his Majesty that wise princes always made their
resentment yield to their prudence, and their passion to
their interest ; and that enmity as well as friendship in
royal breasts should always give way to policy; and
that whatever would strengthen his hands, confirm his
power, and establish his government, should be consulted
preferably to any other views whatever.

This doctrine of stifling his dislike and moderating
his resentment was the language she had always talked

» This reminds one of the iNnjf saying of one of the French Ministers
of Finance whom the King dismissed for some peculations: — '* &i
Majest4 a tort ; foveas feds meg affaires, et faUcA faire les siennes" The
Count de Broglie, the French Ambassador, writes oon6dentia)lj to his
Court, 20 July, 1724, that *' Mr. Walpole is immensely rich, and disposed
to retire from business, to enjoy his wealth.'* — Caxe, ii. 303. His paternal
estate was a little over 2000/. a year. — lb,f i. 6.

1727. QUEENS VIEWS. 65

to him during his quarrel with his father when he was
Prince ; and by frequently inculcating such principles,
she had prevailed with him in the late reign so far to
suppress the natural warmth and vehemence of his tem-
per, as not to push things to an extremity that could
have done him little good at present, and might have
endangered his future succession : and as he had once
foimd the benefit of these mollifying, palliative counsels
by a quiet and popular accession to the Crown, he was
more easily, perhaps, brought to feel the force and pro-
priety of such arguments in the present juncture of
affairs, though very repugnant and unpalatable to his
natural prompt disposition.

VOL. I.

LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. m.

CHAPTER III.

Foreign Afiairs — The Quadruple Alliance — Duke of Ripperda— Treaty of
Vienna of 1725— Treaty of Hanover— State of France— Louis XV.—
Cardinal Fleury — The King of Prussia — Forces of the respective parties
to the Treaties.

The situation of affairs abroad was no doubt another
prevalent argument made use of by the Queen in favour
of Sir Robert : for as England was at this time in alli-
ance with no power in Europe of any weight but
France, a change of the English administration might
have alarmed France with the apprehension of a change
of measures too, which as it would have weakened the
harmony and good intelligence subsisting between these
two crowns, so it would also have increased the demands
and strengthened the hands of the common enemy.

Spain had already conceived such hopes of this change
upon the demise of the late King, that though the pre-
liminary articles for opening the Congress at Soissons
were already signed, and brought to England the very
same day with the news of the King's death ; yet by a
forced construction of the words in the article relating
to Gibraltar, Spain raised a cavilling objection which put
a stop to all proceedings at the Congress as effectually
as if the preliminary articles had not been signed at all.

But in order to illustrate the situation of foreign
affairs at this time, it will be necessary in a little short
deduction of facts to take one cursory view of all the
negotiations and transactions of the great Powers of

1727. FOREION AFFAIRS. 67

Europe from the time of the first Vienna Treaty in
1725, between the Emperor and Spain, which laid the
foundation of all the subsequent treaties, and was the
fountain of all the troubles and wrangles in which
Europe had been involved from that time to this.

It will also be necessary afterwards, for the iurther
explanation of these affitirs, to give a transient narrative
of the state and policy of every particular Court at this
period^ and to relate by whom these Courts were in-
fluenced, on what views they acted, and how these views
were pursued.

The Treaty of Utrecht was the basis on which the
peace of all the great Powers of Europe stood when
King George I. came to the Crown ; but notwithstand-
ing that treaty, there remained many material points
relating to the jarring interests of King Philip [of
Spaing and the Emperor still unadjusted ; and the mu->
tual enmity that had subsisted between these two princes
during their contention for the crown of Spain in the
late war, was so ill reconciled, that the bringing them
to temper with one another was a difficulty not yet got
over.

But in the Treaty of London made in 1718 (a con-
vention entered into between France, England, Hol-
land, and the Emperor, and thence commonly called
the Quadruple Alliance), an expedient was thought of
to bring this reconciling project to bear ; and indeed
without this reconciliation it was impossible to put the
peace of Europe on any solid or lasting foundation.

The expedient fixed upon was this : — The Emperor
looking upon the kingdom of Naples as an insecure and
precarious possession whilst Sicily was in any hands

f2

68 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. ni.

but his own, it was proposed, in order to oblige and ac-
commodate him, that the King of Sicily, to whom Sicily
was given by the Treaty of Utrecht, should yield that
island to the Emperor ; that in lieu of it Spain should
give up the island of Sardinia to the King of Sicily ; and
that Spain should be recompensed for that cession by
settling the eventual succession to the Duchies of Tus-
cany, Parma, and Placentia, in case the present posses-
sors died without sons, on Don Carlos, second son to the
King of Spain, and eldest son to the present Queen ;
and this succession was to be secured to Don Carlos by
the introduction of six thousand neutral Swiss troops
(in the joint pay of France, England, and Spain), who
were to garrison the chief ports and strong towns of
these duchies,^

These two material and favourite points of the Courts
of Vienna and Madrid once agreed to and settled, it was
proposed, in order to adjust any little remaining punc-
tilios and disputes between the two Courts, that a Con-
gress should be opened at Cambray, and that the Crowns
of France and England should there mediate between
them.

Holland, though mentioned in the preamble to this
treaty as one of the principal contracting parties, never
acceded to it; and the accession of Spain was not made
till two years after the treaty had been concluded.

The public reasons given on all hands for entering
into this treaty were, that it was a treaty only explana-

1 Philip V.'s first wife was Mary of Savoy, by whom he had two sons
— Lewis, whom he seated on his own throne, but who died soon after, when
Philip resumed it— and Ferdinand VI. By his second wife, Elizabeth of
Parma, he had Don Carlos, heir in her right to the Duchies of Parma and
Placentia, who eventually became Charles III. of Spain.

1727. TREATY OF VIENNiu 69

tory of that article of the Treaty of Utrecht relatiDg to
the neutrality 'of Italy, and necessary to settle the
balance of Europe.

The motive of the Emperor to this alliance was evi-
dent, as it tended to put him immediately in possession
of Sicily ; and the chief if not the only view of the King
of Great Britain, I believe, was to oblige the Emperor
in this point, in order to purchase by such good offices
the investiture of Bremen and Verden, which he so
much wished and had so long solicited in vain.

The reason why France gave into it was certainly
because the Duke of Orleans, who was then Begent of
France, and by the act of renunciation* next heir to the
crown, in case the Ring died without children, was glad
to enter into any treaty in which that act of King
Philip's renunciation was so formally. and so strongly
renewed : nor was he averse at this time and for this
reason to the doing anything that would engage the
Emperor and England to be more firmly his friends,
in case that accident happened.

The reasons Spain had for being backward to accede
to this alliance were, first, the King's being unwilling
to renew and strengthen the renunciation to the Crown
of France ; and next, the desire Spain had to possess her-
self if she could by force, of Sicily, as she had done, two
years before, of Sardinia.

In order to compass this seissure, after the Quadruple
Alliance was concluded, Spain sent a great fleet, under

' The renunciation of the Crown of France bj Philip V., who was next
heir to that Crown. It has been surmised that Philip's strange resigna-
tion of the Crown of Spun to his son was influenced hj some design of
retracting this renundation.

70 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. HI.

the command of Admiral Castinetti, into tibte Mediterra*
nean ; at the same time England sent another to oppose
them, under Lord Torrington : they fought — England
was victorious, and Sicily put into the hands of the
Emperor.'

And here lay the great defect either in the plan or
the execution of the chief stipulations in the Quadruple
Alliance ; for as the putting the Emperor into the pos-
session of Sicily, and the introduction of the six thousand
Swiss troops for the security of Don Carlos*s succession,
were conditional articles, and dependent upon one an-
other, so the contracting parties to this alliance ought
never to have suffered a distinct and separate execution
of the one without the other. The permitting the im-
perial troops to enter Sicily before the neutral troops
entered into Parma and Tuscany was the occasion of
all the subsequent difficulties that arose upon that point ;
as it gave the Emperor an occasion of making a thou-
sand demurs and disputes, which he never would have
thought of had they suspended at the same time the
perfecting what he had so much at heart as the acqui-
sition of Sicily.

This attempt of Spain on that island having miscar^
ried, the Queen of Spain now turned her thoughts solely
to the interest of her son Don Carlos; and not a little
piqued, no doubt, at England, who had thrown this bar
in her way when she thought to have possessed herself
of Sicily, and treated upon the establishment of Don
Carlos in Italy with that powerful mediator in her

' It 18 strange that Lord Hervey did not see that this fai^oric series of
drcumstances effectually contradicts the impvtatioQ (ante, p. 50) that Sir
George Byng's defence of Sicily was unauthorized.

1727. RIPPBRDA. 71

hands. However, this design having proved abortive, she
at last acceded to the Quadruple Alliance; acquiesced
under the dispositions therein made for the security of
her son's eventual succession to Parma and Tuscany ;
consented to the opening of the Congress at Cambray^
and left the mediation there between Spain and the
Emperor entirely to France and England.

But whilst this mock Congress was carrying on, the
Duke de Ripperda, a projecting, speculating, enter-*
prising, inconsiderate, hot-headed fellow, with great
views rather than great parts, was sent by the Queen of
Spain to Vienna, and there privately concluded a treaty
between the Emperor and Spain«^

It would be both tedious and uninteresting here to
enter into the detail of all the writings of these times
for and against the English ministers, in which one side
asserted and the other denied what was the purport of
the secret articles of this treaty : it is possible the Eng-^
lish ministers might say more than was true, in order to
justify their precipitate entrance into the Treaty of
Hanover ; but it k certain that their opponents allowed

< Seethe historjof thisextraordinarj ftdventarerki Coz^'r < Walpole ' (c.
35). He was bj birth a Dutch Protestant, sent in 1715 £nYoy from Holland
to Madrid, where he insinuated himself into the good graces of Cardinal
Alberoni, under whose advice and countenance he turned Roman Cathdic,
and obtained employment in Spain, where he at length became first minis-
ter, and was created Duke de Ripperda, but in a few months was disgraced,
and imprifioued for fifteen months in the tower of Segovia, whence he
escaped (by means of and with a female servant, whom he attached to his
fortunes) to England, where he lived a couple of years in great splendour,
and was foolish enough to flatter himself for a while that he might become
minister here. At length, in 1731, he returned to Holland; and subse-
quently, to revenge himself on Spain, entered the service of the Emperor of
Marocco, turned Mahometan, became Prime Minister and General-in-Chief,
but was, on another turn of fortune, disgraced^ and he died at Tetuan in
1737, at a very adv«need age.

72 LOED HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. HI.

a great deal too little when they at first denied that
there was any secret treaty at all ; and never to the last
allowed that the tenor of those secret articles, if there
were any, was such as affected the immediate interest of
Great Britain, or ought to have alarmed us.

That there was some secret treaty was evident at
first from the tendency of all the articles of the public
treaty being only in favour of the Emperor, as the
guarantee of the hereditary dominions of the House of
Austria, privileges of trade, subsidies, &c.; and through-
out the whole public treaty not the least mention made
of Don Carlos's succession to Parma and Tuscany;
which was a demonstration that there must be some
secret stipulations in his favour, otherwise this favourite
point would not have been neglected. Besides this,
when Gibraltar came to be demanded by Spain, and
that we upbraided the Emperor with having entered
into engagements to assist Spain with force to regain
that place, in case amicable applications failed, Count
Staremberg, the Emperor's ambassador at London,
showed the article relating to Gibraltar in the secret
treaty, to clear the Emperor of having promised any-
thing more than his good offices and mediation upon
that head ; which was so far indiscreetly done, as it was
a confession that there was some secret treaty, which
hitherto had been denied.

But, without expatiating fiurther on this dispute be-
tween the English ministers and their opponents, I
shall relate the matter of fact as I conceive it from the
best lights I have been able to get on reading the whole
controversy on both sides.

Between the public and private stipulations of this

1727. TREATY OF VIENNA. 73

Treaty of Vienna, I take the substance of it to have
been this:— that the Emperor and Spain were to give
one another reciprocal assistance in the maintenance of
the Ostend Company,* and the restitution of Gibraltar;
Spain was to guarantee the indivisible succession of the
Austrian dominions to the Emperor's eldest daughter ;
the Queen of Spain's two eldest sons were to marry the
two archduchesses ; vast subsidies were to be paid by
Spain to the Emperor ; and all the same advantages of
trade to either Indies were to be allowed by Spain to
the Emperor that were granted by former treaties either
to England or Holland.

It is easy to imagine that France and England, who
had been appointed mediators between Spain and the
Emperor, did not like the figure they made upon this
occasion, though none of the articles or stipulations of
this treaty openly avowed were contradictory to any in
the Quadruple Alliance. However, Spain was so con-
scious that some apology was necessary for appointing
France and England the pageant mediators in a quarrel
which, notwithstanding that appointment, was made up
without their privity, that she excused herself by say-
ing she took her cause into her own hands on account
of the afiront put upon her by France in sending back
the Infanta^ and annulling that marriage with the King
of France ; and that England having refused, after this
affiront, to accept of the sole mediation and to act alone,

A The Ostend Company was a Belgian East India Company, which the
Emperor was desirous of establishing in rivalry to the English and Dutch.

• The Infanta Mary Anne, bom in 1718, sent to France in 1721, as the
betrothed wife of the young Louis XV., was sent back by the Duke of
Bourbon in 1725.

74 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap, III.

Spain was obliged either to act in this manner or not to
have her affairs with the Emperor settled at alL

But this was only a plausible excuse for her conduct
on this occasion, dates and facts proving that these were
not her motives ; for the sending back the Infanta was
a measure not taken till the beginning of March, 1725,
and by the end of the April following the Treaty of
Vienna was concluded, signed, and arrived at Madrid ;
which could not have been, if it had only been pro-
jected in resentment of that step taken by the Court of
France : and as to England's refusal of the sole media-
tion, that refusal being of a yet later date, it could have
no sort of influence in setting the Treaty of Vienna on
foot ; so far from it, tiiat this treaty was signed in form
at Vienna, April 30, 1725, which was but a week
after the King of England's refusal of the sole media-
tion was known at Madrid, and long before it could be
known at Vienna [through Madrid]. Besides this, the
Duke de Bipperda's full powers for making this treaty
had been signed in November, 1724,^ which was six
months before the sending back the Infanta was thought
of; and, consequently, as long before the sole mediation
could have been proposed. So that the making this
excuse only showed they thought some excuse neces-
sary, and could not find one that would justify or avail
them.

I have dwelt longer on this point, as the not accept-
ing the sole mediation is the great fault imputed to our
ministers by all those writers who have arraigned their
conduct ; but I think one may, with a great deal of

7 Coze says as early as October.

1727. TBBAXy OF VIENNA. 75

candour, pronounce that, if our mmisters had accepted
of the sole mediation at the time it was offered, they
would have been guilty of a much greater error, both
in justice and interest, and consequently in policy, than
any that can now be laid to their charge. As to the
justice of disjoining themselves from France upon this
occasion, it can never be alleged that France having
disobliged Spain was any reason why England should
disoblige France ; and of course no plea for England
acting alone in a transaction which they had undertaken
together. Thus much is to be said for the equity of
the reAisal, which in national transactions, I may be
told perhaps, neither is nor ought ever to be consi-
dered. But supposing the interest of England only to
be considered, it would certainly never have turned
out for the advantage of England to have accepted this
proposal, because it could have given a very reason-
able disgust to the Court of France (with whom we
were then in the strictest alliance), without giving us
any merit towards Spain or the Emperor, whose recon-
ciliation was already agreed on, and not left to be the
work of our hands. So that our giving in to this pro-
posal would have turned to no other account than
proving ourselves the dupes of Spain^ who could make
this offer (all circumstances considered) with no other
view than to weaken the miion, sow jealousies, and
create a coolness at this important crisis between France
and England ; and would at least have made England
engross all the ridicule of being chosen public arbitrator
in a quarrel already privately made up.

As for the real reasons the Courts of Madrid and
Vienna had for entering into this treaty, if we will con-

76 LORD HERVErS MEMOIRS. Chap. HI.

sider the situation, the policy, and views of these two
Courts at this period of time, and how far the stipula-
tions and articles contained in this treaty were reci-
procal gratifications of all the favourite points of the
contracting parties, there want no refining conjectures
to account for the setting such a scheme on foot, or the
solicitude that each of these powers showed for putting
it in execution.

The Emperor, as he is a prince who has very exten-
sive and scattered territories, a great number of troops,
and very little money, is always negotiating for the
latter, in order to maintain the two others. He has
generally very able servants both in civil and military
affairs; and never had two more able than Prince
Eugene and Zinzendorff, his principal counsellors at
that time.

But by the whole tenor of the conduct of the court
of Vienna, their maxims seem to be, to say anything,
to promise anything, or to sign anything — that will serve
the present purpose ; to get what they can, without ever
considering afterwards by whom, how, or when they
were obliged ; and, in short, to be just or unjust, grate-
ful or ungrateful, say and unsay, make and unmake
treaties, just as the present occurrence requires ; and
as money can be got by their entering into any engage-
ments, adhering to them or departing from them. The
vast personal obligations the present Emperor had to
England on account of the last long war ® never seemed

8 The Succession War, for placing Charles on the throne of Spdn. But
such obligations are generally, as here, much exaggerated. England fought
for what she thought her own interests, and not for the individual Charles
of Austria.

1727. TREATY OF VIENNA. 77

to have any weight in his Imperial Majesty^s resolutions,
conduct, or counsels, for one moment, in any one step,
or any one instance, ever after. The part England
had taken in his cause during that expensive war in
Spain was soon forgot by him, though the effects of that
friendship remained too heavy a burden on the people
of England, in debts and taxes, not to be still felt and
remembered by them. The putting Sicily into his
hands, though a more recent obligation, was not better
acknowledged or remembered; for the investiture of
Bremen and Verden, for which Lord Cadogan nego-
tiated and Lord Torrington fought, was not granted,
though promised, and probably was kept back in order to
be held out once more as a bait to the next job in which
the interposition of England should be wanted. The
great and favourite points of the Court of Vienna were,
getting money and subsidies — at any rate securing the
undivided succession of the hereditary Austrian domi-
nions in case the Emperor had no sons — the suffering
no other power, if they could help it, to get footing in
Italy — and the establishment of the Ostend Company.
On these views the Emperor entered into this Treaty
of Vienna with Spain in 1725, which answered them
every one, for by the articles of this treaty he was to
have immense subsidies paid to him by Spain for troops
he was to ftirnish to besiege Gibraltar ; he was to be
supported in the establishment of the Ostend Company;
and, by the marriage of his eldest daughter* to Don
Carlos, the Queen of Spain's eldest son, he was to keep
the hereditary Austrian dominions entire, and see his
daughter's husband, who was eventual successor to the

9 Maria Theresa, afterwards Queen of Hungary and Empress.

78 LORD HERVBrS MEMOIRS. Chap. IIL

duchies of Fanna and Tuscany, sole possessor of all
Italy. But this treaty, by getting him too much, got
him nothing (saving the subsidies) ; for when all the
rest of Europe saw how very formidable a power might
arise on this foundation — some justly, and others, I
think, unjustly alarmed — judged it their joint interest
to crush this project in the embryo. The English mi*
nisters pretend to affirm, that in this treaty, in case
England should oppose the execution of it and the
marriage of Don Carlos with the eldest archduchess,
there was a secret article to impose the Pretender upon
us, and make his concurrence to this treaty the condi-
tion of his restoration. Whether this really was so, or
whether it was a story trumped up to excuse their very
precipitate entrance into the Treaty of Hanover, is a
point that never has, and in all probability never wilV^
be cleared : it is certain that the Duke de Ripperda, who
then governed Spain, did> both at Madrid and Vienna,
in very big blustering terms, often declare this to be
his scheme ; and that, if England was not quiet, she
should repent her opposition, and be made to receive
a King who would be more tractable, or at least more
passive.

This was the situation of the Court of Vienna : as to
that of Spain, it has partly been explained by the
account of the other. The crown of Spain being on

10 I know not that this point has been yet fully cleared up. Sir R.
Walpole, on secret information, as he said — ^probably that of Ripperda—
asserted the existence of this stipulation in his speech, 29 March, 1734.
Coxe states that the documents to which he had access prove it ; but he
does not produce any such document. Lord Mahon also adopts these state-
ments, but has not confirmed them by any additional authority. The fact
is very probable ; but it is observable that Lord Hervey, who at least revised
these memoirs some years later, and was so long in the iiill confidence of
Walpole, still speaks very doubtfully of it.

1727. TREATY OF HANOVEB. 79

the head of a man who had once abdicated it, then
taken it again, and again wished to lay it aside— one
who was half fool and half madman — he had little
or no share in any act of that Court ; he was governed
entirely by his wife, an Italian by birth, whose sole
view was aggrandizing her own children, and securing
herself a retreat in Italy in case she outlived her hus-
band, whose brains and constitution were equally crazy
and broken. The Prince of Asturias [Ferdinand], her
husband's son by a former wife, being heir to the crown
of Spain, she never considered the interest of that king-
dom in any of her negotiations ; and though her eldest
and favourite son, Don Carlos, had the eventual suc-
cession of Parma and Tuscany secured to him by the
Quadruple Alliance, yet the Duke de Ripperda had so
extended her views for Don Carlos's grandeur, by this
scheme of the Vienna Treaty, that, lured and elated by
those hopes of marrying him to the archduchess, making
him Emperor, and getting him all Italy, she lost sight
of what was feasible in order to pursue what was im-
practicable ; and draining the treasures of Spain (though
supplied by the Indies) to bribe the favour and supply
the indigence of the Court of Vienna, she ran away
with this extravagant chimerical scheme, forgot or neg-
lected the succession of Parma and Tuscany, as little
things not worth thinking of, and alarmed and em- /
broiled all Europe with this project, which a mad j
minister had put into the head of this mad Queen,
whose influence over her mad husband was suflicient to i
lead him blindfold into this or any other mad project/
she thought fit. I

But to oppose the execution of this Treaty of

80 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. III.

Vienna, France and England entered immediately,
in 1725, into the Treaty of Hanover, called a defen-
sive treaty: the chief object of it was, I believe, a
piece of flattery of Lord Townshend's to the late King,
who was piqued at not having been able to obtain the
investiture of Bremen and Verden, looked upon him-
self as the Emperor's dupe, and was glad to lay hold
of the first pretence he could find to do anything that
would thwart his Imperial Majesty's inclination, com-
bat his interest, or mortify his pride. The public rea-
sons given out for setting this Treaty of Hanover on
foot were, — the alarm all Europe had taken upon the
sudden, unnatural, clandestine, and formidable conjunc-
tion of these two great powers, the Empire and Spain ;
the expediency of forming some counter-alliance to
make a stand against the union, and preserve the ba-
lance of power in Europe ; and the necessity there was
of putting a stop to the intended marriage of Don Carlos,
by early protesting against it The dangerous conse-
quences which the contracting parties to the Treaty of
Hanover said all Europe might apprehend from this
match were these : — first, that it would demonstrably
and inevitably unite all Italy to the Empire after the
death of the present Emperor ; in the next place, as
there was only the Prince of Asturias's life between
Don Carlos and the crown of Spain, so very probably
Spain might be added to those vast possessions ; and,
besides this, the King of France having then no
children, there was a possibility even of that crown also
devolving to Don Carlos, and his being consequently,
if not universal monarch of Europe, at least a power
too strong for any of the rest, or all of them put toge-

1727, TREATY OF HANOYEB. 81

ther, to contend with. All these contingencies and
possible events considered, the allies of Hanover in-
sisted on this match being repugnant to the interest of
every state in Europe, and consequently the business
of all Europe to oppose and prevent it. In the mean
time, pursuant to the stipulations of the Treaty of
Vienna, immense remittances were made to the Em-
peror : soon after, Gibraltar was demanded by Spain,
in consequence of an equivocal promissory letter,
written by the late Eing^^ to the King of Spain; and
those demands not being complied with, the siege of
Gibraltar was opened.

In consequence of this Treaty of Hanover, three
great fleets were immediately fitted out on the part of
England ; one of which was sent to the coast of Spain
to protect our merchant-ships and to be ready to defend
Gibraltar ; another was ordered to the West Indies to
block up the galleons in Porto Bello, and prevent the
arrival of money in Spain, without which the allies of
the Vienna Treaty could not put the articles of it in
execution; and the third sailed into the Baltic to
secure (as was pretended) the pacification of the North
and defend Sweden in case she acceded to the Treaty
of Hanover from the resentment of the Moscovite, who
was joined with the Emperor and would have been
glad of any pretence to attack her. These were the
reasons given for the equipment of this third expensive
fleet, whilst the strongest, which was the security and
defence of Bremen and Verden, operated only in
secret.

u The details of this very questionable traiisactioii are to be found in
Coie, i. 308, &c.

VOL. 1. O

82 LOBD HERYETS MEMOIRS. Chap. UI.

France was at this time governed entirely by Car-
dinal Fleury ; he was, though not nominally, yet vir-
tually, First Minister, and with undivided sway ; he
had been about the King irom his infancy, and had
such fiill possession of him, that from the time of Mon-
sieur le Due's ^* disgrace nobody but die Cardinal ever
spoke to him of any business whatever. This monopoly
of the King's ear and confidence the Cardinal owed
partly to his Majesty's opinion of him and an habitual
attachment that people mistook for affection, and partly
to the King's natural laziness and dislike to letting
many people know how ignorant he was in his own
affitirs, which was a defect he had just sense enough to
feel and be ashamed o^ but not resolution and appli-
cation enough to correct and amend. I cannot, by the
best accounts I have had, or by what I have myself
seen of this insensible piece of royalty, venture abso-
lutely to say that he was of a good or a bad disposition,
for, more properly speaking, he was of no disposition
at all; he was neither mercifiil nor cruel, without
affection or enmity, gratitude or resentment, and, to
all appearances, without pleasure or pain. Whatever
he did seemed rather the mechanical operations of an
automaton than the result of the will and direction of a
rational being. The state of his mind on all occasions
seemed still to be an entire apathy, unacting and un-
moved; if he had any passion it was avarice, and if he
took pleasure in any amusement it was in gaming.
He had not any share in that epidemical gaiety and
alacrity that runs through the generality of the Frendi

i> The Duke de Bourbon, who succeeded the Regent as First Minister
in 1728, was dismissed in 1726, and died in 1740.

1727. CARDINAi FLBURY. 83

nation; but seemed to take as little pleasure as he
gave, to live to as little purpose to himself as to any-
body else^ and to have no more joy in being King
than his people had advantages from being his
subjects.

It was lucky for France that the sole management of
this regal puppet fell at last [1726] into the Cardinal's
hands; for though his Eminence was not a man of the
first-rate parts, the brightest talents, or tibe most
elevated genius, yet he had a good plain practical
understanding, was a prudent minister, and an honest
man. He was disinterested and conscientious, candid,
open, steady, and unfeignedly pious. He loved the
King with the afiection of a parent as well as the duty
of a subject, served his country with the zeal of the
warmest patriot, and considered mankind with the
justice and charity of the strictest Christian; what
faults he had were emanations from his virtues; for
his support of the tTesuits to a degree that might be
called an oppression and persecution of their great
opponents, the Jansenists, proceeded only from too
strict an adherence to what he thought the truth, the
safety of the Government, and the welfare of the
people. He always believed the principles of the
Jansenists to be as strong for liberty in State as in
Church matters, and that if ever they were given way
to in the one, they would quickly gain ground in the
other, and cause, of course, such convulsions in the
Government that nobody could foresee where the con-
sequences of such a spirit would end, nor how far it
might operate when assisted by the particular vivacity
of the French nation and the general love of innova-

g2

84 LOBD HEEYEY'S MEMOmS. Chap. HI.

lion and freedom in all mankind. Those actions which
got him the character of a covetous, gripmg minister
were only the consequences of rather too sparing and
frugal a dispensation of the King's treasure, which he
found in so dissipated a condition at his entrance into
power, that it required at first the strictest economy to
bring it into any order, method, or credit

He had no view in what he saved to enriching him-
self or his family ; the nepotism of other Cardinals and
almost all Popes had no influence in his conduct, for
he had but two nephews, one in the marine and the
other in the church, and to avoid the reproach of par-
tiality to his own blood at the expense of the public,
he neglected their advancement, even to a fault

His great principle in politics was to keep peace " in
Europe as long as it was possible, and by his adherence
to this principle France, during his administration, re-
covered all the havoc and distress and misery that had
been brought upon her by a series of so many years'
mismanagement in his predecessors*. She no longer
groaned under the consequences of the imprudent,
obstinate, and boundless ambition of Lewis XIV., nor
the misfortunes generally entailed on the people by
long, expensive, and unsuccessftil wars. The profligacy,
extravagance, and dissipation of the Duke of Orleans'
regency, and the confusion of Mr. Law's Mississippi
scheme, were no longer felt, any more than the bad
effects of the succeeding times, when the Government,
falling into the hands of that weak, ignorant, and in-
dolent Prince, Monsieur le Due, France suffered all
those hardships which must naturally and unavoid-

i» " Peace is my dear delight— not Fleury's more,**— Pope.

1727. STATE OF PRANCE. 85

ably be brought on a nation when the supineness of
such a governor leaves the rapaciousness of such an
abandoned, unfeeling, and unprincipled a woman as his
mistress, Madame de Frie, fiiU scope and plenitude
of power to act all the follies, oppressions, and injustices
that passion, avarice, vanity, and insolence can suggest

This was the state of France when the Cardinal
came into the Hanover Treaty, which, without being
repugnant to his pacific principles, was consonant to
the inherent and fundamental policy of all Frenchmen,
who are naturally jealous of the power of the House of
Austria, and always ready to enter into any measures
to check and confine it.

To oppose the execution then of the Vienna Treaty
made between the Emperor and Spain, France and
England formed the Hanover Treaty, September 3,
1727, when the late King was at Hanover. As soon
as this treaty was concluded, to which England, France,
and Prussia were the original contracting parties,
copies of it were sent to all the Courts and little States
in Europe ; and whilst the Emperor and Spain were
soliciting, on one hand, for accessions to their Treaty
of Vienna, England and France were, on the other,
strengthening, by as many powers as they could list,
the alliance of Hanover.

The defection of the King of Prussia from the latter
was a sudden turn, and proceeded partly from a fear of
his superior, the Emperor, and partly from a sullen,
envious hatred he bore to his father-in-law, the King
of England, who, from the time of his advancement to
that crown, sank in his son-in-law's favour, just in the
same proportion as he rose above him in grandeur*

86 LORD HERVErS MEMOIRS. Chap. HI.

This was a great loss to the allies of Hanover, the
King of Prussia having a standing force of 70,000
men. The forces of Spain were about 60,000, besides
their naval power ; and the army of the Emperor in all,
after the new levies, about 200,000. Muscovy was the
only considerable power, besides Prussia, that acceded
to the Treaty of Vienna ; for whilst the Czarina alone
obliged herself, in case of a rupture, to ftirnish 30,000
men, the Electors of Bavaria, Cologne, and Treves,
besides several other little German Princes that his
Imperial Majesty had bullied, cajoled, or bought into
his party, could muster no more than 27,000 men when
all their forces were clubbed together.

To the Hanover alliance came in Holland, Sweden,
and Denmark. Holland augmented her forces from
30,000 to 50,000 men by land, and by sea had eighteen
men-of-war ready to sail. The quota of Sweden, by
virtue of their treaty, was 5000 men, and 10,000 more
they were to have ready in consideration of a yearly
subsidy of 100,000Z. for three years, paid jointly by
France and England. Denmark was to have 24,000
men standing troops, and for a subsidy paid by France
for four years was to augment their forces to 30,000
if required. France increased her regular troops
30,000 men, which made them in all amount to
160,000. They had also a disciplined militia of 60,000
men, sea-magazines, artillery, and ammunition ready
to take the field, and for sea-services they fitted out
this year twelve men-of-war.

The King of England, as Elector, increased his
troops from 16,000 to 22,000 men, and as King of
England from 18,000 to 26,000 men; 20,000 men

1727. FORCES OF EACH PARTY. 87

were also voted by the Parliament that year for the
sea-service, and 1 2,000 Hessians were taken into the
pay of Great Britain alone, at an expense of 240,000^.
a year. This subsidy caused so much clamour in
Parliament and so much disaffection throughout the
whole nation, that I shall speak of it hereafter more at
large.

Thus almost all the powers of Europe were engaged
directly or indirectly in support of the Treaty of
Vienna or Hanover respectively, whilst the accumu-
lated land-forces of the first and all their allies amounted
to about 387,000 men, and of the latter to about
315,000 men.

In this perplexed, entangled, and amphibious state of
broken peace and imdeclared war did King George II.
at his accession to the throne find the political affairs
of Europe.

88 LOBD HERYET'S MEMOIRS. Cbak IV.

CHAPTER IV.

New Parliament — ^The Coronation — ^Creation of Peers — Mrs. Clayton —
Queen's Management of the King — Libels — Character of Lord Scar-
borough and of Lord Chesterfield compared.

As soon as his Civil List was settled the old Parliament
was dismissed, and soon after a new one called. The
choice of this new Parliament was consigned entirely
to the care of Sir Robert Walpole, which confirmed
Hie whole world in the opinion of the King s being
determined to continue him First Minister, everybody
being capable, without much penetration or refinement,
to reason, that a man who was to have his fiHiends, fol-
lowers, and adherents removed irom Court would never
have Court-money given him to bring them into Par-
liament

In October the ceremony of the Coronation was per-
formed with all the pomp and magnificence that could
be contrived; the present King difiering so much
from the last, that all the pageantry and splendour,
badges and trappings of royalty, were as pleasing to the
son as they were irksome to the father. The dress of
the Queen on this occasion was as fine as the accumu-
lated riches of the City and suburbs could make it ; for
besides her own jewels (which were a great number
and very valuable) she had on her head and on her
shoulders all the pearls she could borrow of the ladies
of quality at one end of the town, and on her petticoat

1727. QUEEN'S POWER. 89

all the diamonds she could hire ^ of the Jews and
jewellers at the other; so that the appearance and the
truth of her finery was a mixture of magnificence and
meanness not unlike the Sclat of royalty in many other
particulars when it comes to be nicely examined and
its sources traced to what money hires or flattery
lends.

Soon after the King came to the crown' he made
Sir John Hobart, Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sir William
Monson, and Sir Thomas Coke peers by the titles of
Lord Hobart, Lord Malton, Lord Monson, and Lord
Lovel.

When first the Queen's power with the King began
to appear (which was as soon as ever he was King)
people made great court to Mrs. Glajrton, one of the
women of her bedchamber. This lady having been
always thought her favourite when Princess, and fi*om
her first coming over constantly in her service, and
seemingly in her confidence, everybody imagined she
would have power in the new reign ; but Sir Robert
Walpole, either jealous of her interest fi*om not be-
lieving her cordially in his, or thinking he wanted no
assistance, soon clipped the wing of her ambition, and
showed the world that as he wanted no pinions but his
own to support him, so he would sufler no other to
approach.

Mrs. Clayton ' had a head fitter for a Court than

1 There was some little ezcoBe for this. <* At the death of Queen Anne,
such a clearance had been made of her Migesty's jewels, or the new King
had so instantly distributed them among his G^erman favourites, that Lady
Sufiblk told me Queen Caroline never obtained of the late Queen's jewels
but one pearl necklace.*' — Reminiscences.

> This creation was in May, 1728.

8 Charlotte Dyves, wife of William Clayton, a Lord of the Treasury, created

VOL, !• G 3

90 LOKD HEKVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chav. IV.

her temper, her passions being to the full as strong as
her understanding ; and as the one hindered her from
being blind to people's faults, the other often hindered
her too from seeming so. She had sense enough to
perceive what black and dirty company, by living in a
Court, she was forced to keep ; had honour enough to
despise them, and goodness enough to hate them, and
not hypocrisy enough at the same time to tell them
they were white and clean. I knew her intimately,
and think she had really a warm, honest, noble, gene-
rous, benevolent, friendly heart; and if she had the
common weakness of letting those she wished ill to see
it, she had in recompense the uncommon merit of
letting those she wished well to not only see, but feel
it She had so great a pleasure in doing real good
that she frequently employed the interest she had at
Court in favour of people who could no way repay her,
and often for such as had not even solicited it; and by
this conduct reversed the manners and maxims of most
courtiers and politicians, as she seemed generally in the
obligations she conferred to consider more who wanted

in 1736 Baron Sundon of Ireland, was of the same Court faction as Lord
Hervey, and therefore his report may have been partial ; that of Horace
Walpole is not so complimentarj. He calls her ^'an absurd, pompous
simpleton/' whose favour with the Queen arose from her '* having wormed
herself into the secret of her Majesty's being afflicted with a rupture, which
no other person knew but the King and her German nurse :*' but the favour
had preceded the alleged'ground of it many years. Walpole states she em-
ployed her interest corruptly. * < Lady Sundon had received a-pair of diamond
ear*ring8 as a inribe for procuring a oonsiderable post in Queen Caroline's
family for a certain peer [Lord Pomfret] ; and, decked with these jewels,
paid a visit to old Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, who as soon as she was
gone said — * What an impudent creature, to come here with her bribe in
her ear !* * Madam,* replied Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was pre-
sent, ^ how should people know where wine is sold unless a bush is hung
out ?' " But teeposif i. 448, n. 1 1, ii. 184, n. 5, and 606, n. 12.

1727. MKS. HOWARD AND MRS. CLATTON. 91

her than whom she wanted — a way of thinking very
different from that of her master and mistress, who
looked upon human kind as so many commodities in a
market, which, without favour or affection, they con-
sidered only in the degree they were useful, and paid
for them in that proportion — Sir Kobert Walpole
being sworn appraiser to their Majesties at all these
sales.

Mrs. Clayton and Mrs. Howard hated one another
very civilly and very heartily, but not in equal constraint ;
for whilst Mrs. Clayton was every moment like Mount
Etna, ready to burst when she did not flame, Mrs.
Howard was as much mistress of her passions as of her
limbs, and could as easily prevent the one from showing
she had a mind to strike, as she could the other from
giving the blow : her passions, if I may be allowed the
comparison, were like well-managed horses, at once
both hot and tractable. The enmity between these two
ladies was a very natural consequence of their situa-
tions, the one having been always attached to the mas-
ter, and the other to the mistress : each was jealous of
the other's interest, and each over-rated it ; for as soon
as their power (had they had any) came to have an
opportunity of showing itself, the whole world perceived
that the reputed favourite of the Princess had as little
real weight with the Queen as the reputed mistress of
the Prince had with the King.

And as people now plainly saw that all Court interest,
power, profit, favour, and preferment were returning in
this reign to the same track in which they had travelled
in the last, lampoons, libels, pamphlets, satires, and bal-
lads were handed about, both publicly and privately,

92 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IV.

some in print and some in manuscript, abusing and
ridiculing the King, the Queen, their Ministers, and all
that belonged to them : the subject of most of them was
Sir Bobert's having bought the Queen, and the Queen's
governing the King ; which thought was over and over
again repeated in a thousand different shapes and
dresses, both of prose and verse. And as the * Grafts-
man *^ had not yet lashed their Majesties out of all feel-
ing for these transitory verbal corrections that smart
without wounding and hurt without being dangerous,
so the King's vehemence and pride, and the Queen's
apprehension of his being told of her power till he
might happen to feel it, made them both at first exces-
sively uneasy. However, as the Queen by long study-
ing and long experience of his temper knew how to
instil her own sentiments, whilst she affected to receive
his Majesty's, she could appear convinced whilst she
was controverting, and obedient whilst she was ruling ;
and by this means her dexterity and address made it
impossible for anybody to persuade him what was truly
his case — that whilst she was seemingly on every oc-
casion giving up her opinion and her will to his, she
was always in reality turning his opinion and bending
his will to hers. She managed this deified image as
the heathen priests used to do the oracles of old, when,
kneeling and prostrate before the altars of a pageant god,
they received with the greatest devotion and reverence
those directions in public which they had before instilled
and regulated in private. And as these idols conse-
quently were only propitious to the favourites of the
augurers, so nobody who had not tampered with our

* This celebrated paper had commenced only the year before.

1727. EOYAL FAVOURITES, 93

chief priestess ever received a favourable answer from
our god : storms and thunder greeted every votary that
entered the temple without her protection ; calms and
sunshine those who obtained it The King himself was
so little sensible of this being his case, that one day
enumerating the people who had governed this country
in other reigns, he said Charles I. was governed by
his wife ; Charles II. by his mistresses ; King James by 1 K^
his priests ; King William by his men — and Queen Anne
by her women — ^favourites. His father, he added, had
been by anybody that could get at him. And at the
end of this compendious history of our great and wise
monarchs, with a significant, satisfied, triumphant air,
he turned about, smiling, to one of his auditors, and
asked him — "And who do they say governs now?**
Whether this is a true or a false story of the King, I
know not, but it was currently reported and generally /
believed. The following verses will serve for a speci-
men of the strain in which the libels, satires, and lam<
poons of these days were composed : —

'* Tou may fltnit, dapper^ George, but 't will all be in vun ;
We know 'tis Qneen Caroline, not yoa, that reign —
Tou govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.
Then if you would have us fall down and adore you.
Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you." «

This was one of the poetical pasquinades that were

6 Greorge II. was very short One of the lampoons on him describes
the pleasure with which he received Mr. (afterwards Lord) Edgcumbe,
who was very low in stature : —

" Rejoiced to find within his court
One shorter than himself 1 "

« Sophia Dorothea of Zell, wife of King George I., was confined by her
husband in the castle of Ahlen for thirty-two years, and died there only
seven months before the King.

94 LOKD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IV.

hauded about in manuscript at this time. There was
another that began —

<' Since England was England, there never was seen
So strutting a King, and so prating a Queen,** &c.

and several more of the same stamp and in the same
style. People found they galled, and that increased the
number of them. The first of those I have cited had
like to have been fatal to Lord Scarborough. Upon
being taxed by the King with having seen it, he con-
fessed he had so, but refused absolutely to say by whom
it had been shown him, assuring his Majesty tibat pre-
viously to his reading it or to the knowing what it was,
he had given his honour never to tell through whose
hands he received it The King, with great warmth
and anger, said to him — ^^ Had I been Lord Scarbo-
rough in this situation and you King, the man should
have shot me, or I him, who had dared to afiront me,
in the person of my master, by showing me such inso-
lent nonsense.'' Lord Scarborough replied, he had
never told his Majesty that it was a man from whom
he had it, and persisting in the concealment he had
promised, left the King (who never spoke to him for
some months after) almost as much irritated against
him as the author.

Lord Scarborough had been in the King's service as
Master of the Horse, when he was Prince, from the time
the Hanover family first came into England ; on the
King's accession to the throne he was continued in that
post, and the first oflScer declared : he was a man of
worth, family, quality, sense, figure, character, and
honour : he had the Garter given him in the late reign ;
was bred in a camp, and from thence brought to Court,

1121. LORD SCABBOBOUQH. 95

and had all the gallantry of the one and the politeness
of the other : he was amiable and beloved, two things
which, though they ought, do not always meet ; he was
of the Cabinet Gotmcil, and was equally fit to be trusted
in the most important affairs, or advised with in the
most delicate ; having knowledge, application, and ob-
servation, an excellent judgment, and (without the bril-
liant eclat of showy parts) a discerning, practical, use-
ful, sound understanding. His education had inclined
him a little too much to the love of an army.''
He was one of the best speakers of his time in the
House of Lords; clear in his matter, forcible in his
expression, and gave weight not only by his words, but
by his diaracter, to any cause he maintained, or any
opinion he inclined to.

When first the King came to the Crown, Lord Ches-
terfield was thought to have interest The accident of
his being in waiting at that time as Lord of his Bed-
chamber gave him that appearance of interest to those
who judge of Courts by appearances ; and his having
been long a declared enemy of Sir Bobert Walpole's,
made the speculative part of the world conclude it.
Lord Chesterfield was allowed by everybody to have
muore conversable entertaining table-wit than any man
of his time ; his propensity to ridicule, in which he in-
dulged himself with infinite humour and no distinction,
and with inexhaustible jpirits and no discretion, made
him sought and feared, liked and not loved, by most of
his acquaintance; no sex, no relation, no rank, no
power, no profession, no firiend^hip, no obligation, was

7 Lord Hervey had been brought up by his father in the old Whig pre-
judice against a standing army.

96 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IV.

a shield from those pointed, glittering weapons, that
seemed to shine only to a stander-by, but cut deep in
those they touched. All his acquaintance were indif-
ferently the objects of his satire, and served promiscu-
ously to feed that voracious appetite for abuse that made
him fall on everything that came in his way, and treat
every one of his companions in rotation at the expense
of the rest. I remember two lines in a satire of Boi-
leau's that fit him exactly : —

'* Mais c*est im petit fou qui se croit toat permis,
Et qui pour un bon mot va perdre yingt amis."

And as his lordship, for want of principle, often sa-
crificed his character to his interest, so by these means
he as often, for want of prudence, sacrificed his interest
to his vanity. With a person as disagreeable as it was
Vp possible for a human figure to be without being de-
formed, he affected following many women of the first
beauty and the most in fashion; and, if you would have
taken his word for it, not without success ; whilst in
fact and in truth he never gained any one above the
venal rank of those whom an Adonis or a Vulcan might
be equally well with, for an equal sum of money. He
was very shorl^ disproportioned, thick, and clumsily
made ; had a broad, rough-featured, ugly face, with
black teeth, and a head big enough for a Polyphemus.^
One Ben Ashurst, who said few good things, though
admired for many, told Lord Chesterfield once that he
was like a stunted giant — which was a humorous idea

8 This is very different from his portruts, which represent a handsome
and intellectual countenance, and indicate a fine, or at least an elegant,
figure and air. Even admitting that the painters flattered, and that Lord
Uervey caricatured, I am at a loss to account for so violent a contrast.

I

1

/

1727. LORD CHESTERFIELD. 97 ^

and really apposite. Such a thing would disconcert [
Lord Chesterfield as much as it would have done any-
body who had neither his wit nor his assurance on other
occasions ; for though he could attack vigorously, he
could defend but weakly, his quickness never showing
itself in reply, any more than his understanding in
argument.

Part of the character which Bishop Burnet gives of
his grandfather, the Marquis of Halifax, seems to be
a prophetic description of Lord Chesterfield, — at least
he has an hereditary title to it : —

^^ The liveliness of Lord Halifax's imagination (says the
Bishop) was always too hard for his judgment : a severe jest
was preferred by him to all arguments whatsoever; and if he
could find a new jest to make even what he himself had sug-
gested in counsel just before seem ridiculous, he could not hold,
but would study to raise the credit of his wit, though it made
others call his judgment in question."

When the distribution of places, changes, and promo-
tions was making at the beginning of this reign, the
King told Sir Eobert Walpole he would have something
done for Chesterfield. Sir Bobert, who did not dislike
removing so declared an enemy to a little distance from
the King's ear, proposed sending Lord Chesterfield
Ambassador to Holland ; and Lord Chesterfield, afiraid
to act against Sir Bobert, and ashamed to act under
him, gave in to this proposal ; thinking it would allow
people time to forget the declarations he had made of
never forgiving Sir Bobert, and save him from a little
of that ridicule which the laughers of his acquaintance
would be apt to lavish upon him when they saw him
listed again under the banner of a man he had formerly

VOL. I. H

\r

/

99 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Cbap. IV.

deserted, and against whom he had so long fought with
his wit, that only weapon with which he cared for
fighting.'

If anybody had a friendship for Lord Chesterfield, it
was Lord Scarborough ; yet it was impossible to see a
stronger contrast of character in any two men, who
neither wanted understanding, but the sort of under-
standing each of them possessed was almost as different
as sense and nonsense: Lord Scarborough always
searching after truth, loving it, and adhering to it;
whereas Lord Chesterfield looked on nothing in that
light — he never considered what was true or false, but
related everything in which he had no interest just as
his imagination suggested it would tell best ; and, if by
sinking, adding, or altering any circumstance, it served
either the purpose of his interest, his vanity, or his
enmity, he would dress it up in that fashion without any
scruple, and oftentimes with as little probability ; by
which means, as much as he piqued himself on being
distinguished for his wit, he often gave people a greater
opinion of the copiousness of his invention and the
fertility of his imagination than he desired — an idle
schoolboy being as capable of changing facts as a
Socrates or a Cicero. Lord Scarborough had under-
standing, with judgment, and without wit; Lord Ches-
terfield, a speculative head, with wit, and without

9 Lord Mahon says (Preface to Works)— ^^ The first outset of Lord
Chesterfield in public life was his embassy to Holland ;" but (besides having
long been a Lord of the Prince's Bedchamber) he was in 1723, while Lord
Stanhope, made Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, which he resigned
in 1725, on some difference with Sir Robert Walpole, which, as well as
a speech of his to the King, I presume on the same occasion, made a noise
at the time. The details have not reached us.-^See Suff, Cor,, i. 183.

1727. SCABBOBOUGH AND CHESTERFIELD COMPARED. 99

judgment. Lord Scarborough had honour and prin-
ciple ; Lord Chesterfield, neither : the one valued them
wherever he saw them ; the other despised the reality,
and believed those who seemed to have most, had
generally only the appearance, especially if they had
sense. Patriotism, adherence to a party, the love of
one's country, and a concern for the public, were his
common topics for ridicule ; he would not scruple to
own that he thought the laws of honour in men, and
the rules of virtue in women, like the tenets of an
established religion, very proper things to inculcate, but
what the people of sense and discernment, of both sexes,
professed without regarding, and transgressed whilst
they recommended. Nor were the tempers of these
two men more alike than their understanding or their
principles ; Lord Scarborough being generally splenetic
and absent; Lord Chesterfield always cheerfiil and pre-/
sent: everybody liked the character of the one, withouli
being very solicitous for his company ; and everybod]!
was solicitous for the company of the other, withou
liking his character. In short. Lord Scarborough wa
an honest, prudent man, capable of being a good inend ;
and Lord Chesterfield a dishonest, irresolute, impru-
dent creature, capable only of being a disagreeable
enemy. ^ "•

h2

100 LOSD WERTST& IIEMOIBS. Chap. V.

CHAPTER V.

Meeting of Parliament— Speaker Onslow — Iniquitous decision of Election
Petitions— Preliminarj Articles of Peace— Vote of Credit— Sir Thomas
Uanmer— Congress of Soissons — Rupture between Walpole and Town-
shend — Its causes — Character of Townshend— Houghton— Townshend
Party— Miss Skerrett.

About the middle of January, 1728, the Parliament
met ; Sir Spencer Gompton, who had been Speaker
fourteen years, being now created Lord Wilmington, a
new one was to be chosen, and Mr. Onslow pitched
upon to be the man. As he had no great pretensions
to it, from his age, his character, his weight in the
House, or his particular knowledge of the business, Sir
Bobert Walpole imagined that he must look upon his
promotion entirely as an act of his favour, and conse-
quently think himself obliged, in honour, interest, and
gratitude, to show all the complaisance in his power to
his patron and benefactor. However, Mr. Onslow had
just that degree of fitness for this office, when he was
first put into it, that hindered the world fi:om exclaim-
ing against him, and yet was not enough for him to
take it as his due. He was a man naturally eloquent,
but rather too florid ; ^ was as far firom wanting parts or

1 " It has been observed that the Chair of the House of Commons sel-
dom fuls to impart to its occupants a certain florid stateliness of diction and
demeanour, like what would be called in common life pomposity,*' — Quar-
terly Review of the Life of Lord Sidmouth, vol. 79, p. 485. It might have
been added, that a predisposition to this florid manner seems sometimes to
have attracted the choice of the House.

1728. SPEAKER ONSLOW. 101

application, as he was from possessing prudence or
judgment; he had kept bad company of the collegiate
kind, by which he had contracted a stiffness and pe-
dantry in his manner of conversing ; and whilst he was
thoroughly knowing in past times, was totally ignorant
of the modern world. No man ever courted popularity
more, and to no man popularity was ever more coy:
he cajoled both parties, and obliged neither ; he dis-
obliged his patron by seeming to favour his opponents,
and gained no credit with them because it was only
seeming. He had one merit truly and sincerely (as I
believe, at least), which was an attachment to the con-
stitution of England, and a love of liberty that never
gave way ; and was certainly no favourer of the power
of the Crown or the Church. But these true Whig and
laudable principles were so daubed by canting, fulsome,
bombast professions, that it was as hard to find out
whether there was anything good at bottom, as it would
be to find out real beauty in a painted lady. In general
he was passionate in his temper, violent in his manner,
coxcomical in his gestures, and injudicious in his
conduct.*

The King was forced to meet his Parliament with a
sort of hereditary speech, for it was just in the same
strain with the last half-dozen of his father's, — the
topics of which were the uncertain state of Europe, the
intricacy of affairs, the natural protraction of treaties,
the hopes of a happy conclusion being near at hand,
and the dependence he had in the loyalty and goodwill
of his Parliament for supporting him with money and

s He was Speaker for thirty-three years (1728— 1761), in five parlia-
ments, with universal approbation.

102 LOKD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. V.

troops. He concluded this part of royal oratory with
recommending unanimity in their proceedings, and
desiring (not in so many words, hut by strong impli-
cation) an entire confidence in him and his ministers ;
and an implicit belief that it was impossible for him to
take any step that was not for the welfare and pros-
perity of his people.'

There was little business to do in this Session besides
that of giving the supplies for the current service of the
year, and hearing petitions on elections/ As to the
first, they were granted with a most liberal hand ; and
as to their proceedings with regard to the last of these
occupations, I believe the manifest injustice and glaring
violation of all truth in the decisions of this Parliament
surpass even the most flagrant and infamous instances
of any of their predecessors. They voted in one case
forty more than ninety; in another they cut off the
votes of about seven towns and some thousand voters,
who had not only been determined to have voices by
former committees of elections, but had had their right
of voting confirmed to them by the express words of an
Act of Parliament and the authority of the whole legis-
lature. There was a string of these equitable deter-
minations in about half a dozen instances, so unwar-
rantable and indefensible that people grew ashamed of
pretending to talk of right and wrong, laughed at that
for which they ought to have blushed, and declared that

> It seeniB strange that Lord Henrey should sneer at this speech, which
seems appropriate to the occasion, and to which he himaetf moved the
responsive address, Slst January; but he was probably somewhat out of
humour at not having had office.

« There were near seventy election petitioDS this Session.

1728. FBELDlIKAiaES OF PBACB. 103

in elections they never considered the cause, but the
men, nor ever voted according to justice and right, but
from solicitation and favour. At the same time these
honest gentlemen, by an extraordinary and unaccount-
able casuistry, fancied that, whilst they were every day
defrauding people of what they had purchased with so
considerable a part of their fortune, that they should
have scruples about picking a pocket or robbing on the
highway; and flattered themselves that a conscience
which could digest the one without hesitation, would
have found any argument against the other but the slight-
ness of the temptation or the fear of the punishment.

During this session of Parliament the preliminary
articles for a general peace, which had been signed
some months before [31st May, 1727] by the Emperor,
France, England, and Holland, were agreed to by the
Court of Spain. The substance of these articles was,
that all hostilities for the space of seven years i^ould
cease, and that the traffic of the Ostend Company should
be suspended for the same term ; that all the articles of
the Quadruple Alliance should be observed and ad-
hered to ; that all treaties relating to commerce made
before the year 1725 should subsist in their full force ;
that the pacification of the North should be discussed
at the Congress; that the English fleet should retire
from before Fortobello and depart from the Spanish
West Indies; and tiiat reparation should be made to
the merchants on both sides for damages that had been
done and the losses they had sustained. All flirther
disputes and subordinate particulars were to be referred
to the plenipotentiaries at the Congress, and to be
adjusted there.

104 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. V.

The Emperor's having signed these articles without
the consent or privity of the Crown of Spain, caused a
coohiess between these two Courts, and laid the founda-
tion of that breach which was the occasion of all others
being healed. Spain, finding that the consideration of
her interest, and the provisions made for her in those
preliminaries, fell so much short of the hopes she had
entertained, and the advantages she had proposed to
herself thought her cause neglected by the Emperor ;
and that, his own cofiers being filled beforehand by the
mad liberality of a profuse Queen, he did not trouble
himself much about procuring for Spain what those
vast sums had been remitted to purchase and secure.
These jealousies and disgusts enabled England to treat
separately with these two Powers, and made them
hearken to terms which, if they had continued united,
in all probability they would never have listened to ;
but the jealousy each of these Crowns had conceived of
the other's complying first, and those who stood out last
being consequently left alone against all Europe, made
each of these Powers as ready to accept of an accom-
modation as England to propose it

The indolent, pacific, and tractable disposition of the
Cardinal gave England little trouble firom that quarter,
and left our ministers full liberty to make what advan-
tage they pleased of this conjuncture; which was a
lucky accident for us, but no justification of those who
threw us so absolutely into their power, and left the
arbitration of our fortune entirely in their hands.*

The Congress was at first appointed to meet at Aix-

& This latter passage seems very obscure. It appears in the MS. to hare
been added to the original.

1728. VOTE OF CREDIT. 105

la-Chapelle, but Cardinal Fleury, desiring to have the
scene of business near to him, and being unable to
leave the King, fixed it at Soissons : it was to open in
June. Horace Walpole, ambassador in France, Mr.
Stanhope, vice-chamberlain to the King, who had been
ambassador in Spain, and Mr. Foyntz, an 61Sve of
Lord Townshend's, were appointed plenipotentiaries on
the part of England.

Before the King put an end to this session of Parlia-
ment he desired and insisted upon it to his ministers
that they should procure him, by a vote of credit, the
same mark of confidence from this House of Commons
that his father had so often received firom their prede-
cessors. The ministers were not at all inclined to ask
this compliment, and the Parliament as little inclined
to bestow it ; but, notwithstanding the reluctance both
of the managers and donors, the thing was done, as
unwillingly asked and granted as it was willingly re-
ceived. I cannot better illustrate the nature of the
complaisant trusts reposed in the Crown by these votes
of credit than by repeating what was said formerly in 1
one of these debates by Sir Thomas Hanmer,* a sensible, \ jT
impracticable, honest, formal, disagreeable man, whose \
great merit was loving his country, and whose great A
weakness loving the parsons. His speeches in Parlia- /
ment were always fine pieces of oratory, but never of /
any signification ; for, as he was eloquent without per- /
suading, he was admired without being followed, and /
pleased people's ears without influencing their opinions. '
With all his sense, what he brought himself to at last,

^ The editor of Shakespeare. He had been Speaker in Queen Anne's last
Pariiament He was a relation and most intimate friend of Lord Bristol.

106 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Cha^. V.

by a wavering odd conduct, was, to be neither of use to
one party nor a terror to the other, and to be disliked
at Court, without being beloved in the country.

What he urged against the late practice of Parlia-
ment in votes of credit was this : —

" Our ancestors," said he, " had two ways of giving extra-
ordinary sums of money to the Crown on extraordinary occa-
sions : the one was by voting a sum certain, without an account
required of the disposal of it ; the other was the giving credit
to the Crown for an indefinite sum, making the Crown accoimt-
able the next year for the use that had been made of this dis-
cretionary power, and the manner in which the money had been
employed. These were anciently the methods practised by our
ancestors ; but the modem manner of giving money to the
Crown has conciliated both the inconveniences of these two ways,
by neither limiting the sum given, nor examining the accoimt
of what has been expended/'

This was certainly not ill said, and put the conduct
of the House of Commons, with regard to that most
material branch of all their power, the giving of money,
in a light which any one man would have been ashamed
to appear in ; but when shame comes to be divided
among five hundred, the portion of every individual is
so small that it hurts their pride as little as it discon-
certs their countenances.

As soon as the King had put an end to this session
of Parliament, he went to Richmond, as he said, because
it was an old acquaintance: he went afterwards to
Hampton Court and Windsor, as others said, because
they were new acquaintances. He would fain have
persuaded both himself and other people that he loved
leisure and retirement ; but whenever he tried them he
was always uneasy and impatient to return to a circle^

1728. RUPTUKB OP WALPOLB AND TOiraSHBND. 107

and never did retire in order to convince people he
liked it, without convincing himself that he did not, and
that he was no more turned to live alone agreeably to
himself than he was to live in company agreeably to
other people. i

The Congress was opened this summer at Soissons,
but the cooks of the Plenipotentiaries had much more
business there than their secretaries, for all the em-
ployment of these great national and regal representa-
tives was giving and receiving visits and dinners.^

It was this summer, too, that that coolness, which
afterwards ended in a total breach, began to show itself
between Lord Townshend and Sir Robert Walpole:
it was not yet grown to such a height as to be manifest
to those moles of a Court who are always drudging on
in their own interested little paths without seeing what
passes every day around them, but those few alert
courtiers who, like cautious and skilful sailors, see every
cloud as soon as it rises and watch every wind as fast
as it changes, already perceived the signs of this gather-
ing tempest, prepared for its bursting, and began to set
their sails in such a manner as should enable them to
shift to the gale that was most favourable, and put
them in a readiness to pursue the course they were in
or tack about, just as the weather should require, and
to that point of the compass where sunshine was most
likely to appear.

7 It opened on the 14th of June, but^ after a few weeks, the principal
minuteTB dispersed, and the meetings became few and irr^;u]ar, the x^
negotiations having been transferred for the convenience of Cardinal Flevay
to Fontamebleaa and Paris. Such of the ministers as, for form's sake, re-
mained at Soissons, continued to give entertainments, to which Lord Hervey
alladea, till the middle of October, when the farce seems to have ended.

^

I

108 LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. V.

\ Posterity will certainly be curious to learn what ex-
traordinary cause there could be for this rupture between
two men who, joined to the alliance of brotherhood,
had for thirty years together lived in an uninterrupted
intimacy of the strictest friendship. But those who
knew his lordship's impracticable temper would rather
wonder that this union continued so long, than that it
was at last dissolved. No man was ever a greater slave
to his passions than Lord Townshend ; few had ever less
/ judgment to poise his passions ; none ever listened less
/ to that little they had. He was rash in his under-
takings, violent in his proceedings, haughty in his car-
riage, brutal in his expressions, and cruel in his disposi-
tion ; impatient of the least contradiction, and as slow
[ to pardon as he was quick to resent. He was so cap-
L^ tious that he would often take offence where nobody
meant to give it ; and, when he had done so, was too
/ obstinate in such jealousies, though never so lightly
/ founded, to see his error, and too implacable ever to
I forgive those against whom they were conceived. He
I was much more tenacious of his opinion than of his
! word ; for the one he never gave up, and the other he
seldom kept ; anybody could get promises from him,
j but few could prevail with him to perform them. It
! was as difficult to make him just as to make him rea-
I sonable ; and as hard to obtain anything of him as to
j convince him. He was blunt without being severe, and
I false without being artfril ; for when he designed to be
most so, he endeavoured to temper the natural inso-
lence of his behaviour with an affected affability, which
I sat so ill upon him that the insinuating grin he wore
upon those occasions was more formidable than his

1728. RUPTURE OF WALPOLE AND TOWKSHEND. 109

severest frown ; and would put anybody to whom he \
pretended friendship more upon their guard than those '.
to whom he professed enmity. j

He had been so long in business, that, notwithstand- ;
ing his slow, blundering capacity, he might have got
through the routine of his employment if he had not
thought himself as much above that part of a statesman
as all mankind thought any other above him. He loved
deep schemes and extensive projects, and affected to
strike what is commonly called great strokes in politics
— things which, considering the nature of our govern^
ment, a wise minister would be as incapable of concert-
ing, without the utmost necessity, as Lord Townshend
would have been of executing them, if there was a ne-
cessity. He had been the most frequent speaker in the {
House of Lords for many years, and was as little im- 1^
proved as if there had been no room for it. Those \
who were most partial to him (or rather, those who pre-
tended to be so whilst he was in power) would not deny
that he talked ill, but used to say he undertalked hi^
capacity, that his conception was much superior to hif
utterance, and that he made a much better figure in
private deliberations than in public debates. But when:
he lost his interest at Court, he lost these palliatives'
for his dullness in the world, and people were as ready;
then to give up his understanding as they had formerly
been to give up his oratory. He either conferred fewer
obligations or met with more ingratitude than any
man that ever had been so long at the top of an admi-
nistration, for when he retired he went alone, and as
universally unregretted as unattended. These Memoirs
are such a medley, that nothing can properly be called

110 LORD HERYETS MEMOIRS. Chjlp. Y.

foreign to them ; and for that reason I shall here insert
a little epigram on Lord Townshend's disgrace : —

** With such a head and such a heart,
If Fortune fails to take thj part.
And long continues thus unkind,
She must be deaf as well as blind ;
And quite reversing eveiy rule,
Nor see the knave, nw hear the fool/'

I believe the first dispute between Lord Townshend
and Sir Robert Walpole began upon making the
Treaty of Hanover, which Sir Robert Walpole always
disapproved^ and would have prevented, though he was
forced, when the measure was once taken, either to
maintain it or break entirely with Lord Townshend — a
rupture which at that time would probably have ended
in his own disgrace ; though, in the subsequent reign,
it terminated in Lord Townshend's ; for Sir Robert's
power then subsisted as much upon Lord Townshend's
superior favour at Court as Lord Townshend's success
subsisted by Sir Robert's superior capacity. Sir Ro-
bert Walpole's great objection to this treaty was its
throwing us so entirely into the arms of France, who
naturally could never be long or cordially our friends,
and its putting us so absolutely into her power if she
pleased to be a dangerous enemy. Another objection
to it was, that it engaged us in all the expenses of a
war at the same time that it put us in no possibility of
expecting any of those advantages that were to be
reaped from one, and kept us in all the inaction of
peace without the benefit of tranquillity. Thus the real
situation in which this treaty put England indisputably
was, declaring ourselves enemies to those Powers who
might be our friends, and engaging in alliance with one
that never could. It put us to all the charge necessary

1728. CAUSES OF THE EUPTUBB. HI

to defend our possessions abroad, and yet left them open
to the discussion of future treaties ; and was just such a
degree of warfare as provoked Spain to molest us in
our commerce, without going far enough to enable us to
do ourselves justice by reprisals. Till the making of
this treaty Sir Bobert Walpole never meddled at all
with foreign affairs ; they were left entirely to Lord
Townshend, whilst Sir Robert's province was confined
solely to parliamentary and domestic concerns. But
when Sir Bobert foimd the clamour against this treaty
so great at home, and the difficulties so many in which
it entangled us abroad, he began to think it necessary
to take some cogni2ance of what gave him immediately
more trouble than all his own affiiirs put together. For
though Lord Townshend only was the transactor of
these peace and war negotiations, yet the labouring oar
in their consequences always fell on Sir Bobert ; it was
he was forced to stand the attacks of parliamentary
inquiry into the prudence of making these treaties ; it
was he was to provide the means necessary to support
them ; on him only fell the censure of entering into them,
and on him lay all the difficulty of getting out of them.

I shall not digress farther on the first heart-burnings
between these two friends and brothers in the late
reign, having said enough to show how unavoidable it
was for Sir Bobert Walpole on this occasion to disgust
Lord Townshend in the two material points of not
approving what had been done, and daring for the
future to offer his advice in what was to be done.

Another great mortification to LordTownshend's pride
was the seeing and feeling every day that Sir Bobert
Walpole, who came into the world, in a manner, under

112 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. V.

his protection, and inferior to him in fortune, quality,
and credit, was now, by the force of his infinitely
superior talents, as much above him in power, interest,
weight, credit, and reputation. All application was
made to him ; his house was crowded like a fair with all
sorts of petitioners, whilst Lord Townshend's was only
frequented by the narrow set of a few relations and
particular flatterers ; and as Lord Townshend in the
late reign had nothing but personal favour at Court to
depend upon in any disputes that might arise between
him and Sir Robert, he could not but grieve to find
that resource in the new reign entirely taken away, the
scene quite inverted, and himself as much dependent
now upon Sir Robert's personal interest as Sir Robert
had formerly been upon his: for as the Duchess of
Kendal never loved Sir Robert Walpole, and was
weak enough to admire and be fond of Lord Town-
shend, so in any nice points that were to be insinuated
gently and carried by favour in the last reign, the
canal of application to the royal ear had always been
from Lord Townshend to the Duchess and from the
Duchess to the King; whereas now everything that
passed to the present King through the Queen (who
was to the son at least what the Duchess of Kendal had
been to the father) was suggested by Sir Robert, and
nothing pushed or received by her from any other hand.
In enumerating the seeds of Lord Townshend's dis-
gust to Sir Robert Walpole there is another occurs to
me, which, trivial as it may seem, I cannot help men-
tioning, because I firmly believe it was a circumstance
that operated so powerfiiUy on the weak brain and
strong vanity of this great and noble Lord, that it con-

1728. HOUGHTON. 113

tributed more than all the rest put together to settle
these little jealousies and distastes into a fixed insur-
mountable aversion.

What I mean is, the great house which Sir Robert
Walpole built at Houghton, in Lord Townshend's
neighbourhood in Norfolk ; and though it may seem to
some too ridiculous and inconsiderable a mouse to have
put this ministerial mountain in labour, yet those who
fancy the passions of princes, the quarrels of heroes,
and wrangles of great men are not often at first stirred
by as mean engines and lighted by as small sparks as
the dissensions of their most obscure inferiors, must
have been little conversant with such people, or con-
versed with them (if knowing them be the end of con-
versing with them) to very little purpose.

Before Sir Robert Walpole built this house (which
was one of the best, though not of the largest, in Eng^
land) Lord Townshend looked upon his own seat at
Raynham as the metropolis of Norfolk, was proud of
the superiority, and considered every stone that aug-
mented the splendour of Houghton as a diminution of
the grandeur of Raynham. Had Sir Robert Walpole
raised this fabric of fraternal discord in any other
county in England, it might have escaped the envy of
this wise rival ; but Sir Robert's partiality to the solum
nataley the scene of his youth and the abode of his
ancestors, made that neighbourhood, to which the acci-
dental commencement of his friendship with Lord
Townshend was first owing, the cause also of its dis-
solution.

As the misimderstanding between these two ministers
increased, Lord Townshend began to think of forming*

VOL. I. I

If

114 LOUD HERYBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. T.

a separate party at Courts and attaching some particular
people to himself whom he could look upon as his per-
sonal friends, who should go under the denomination
of TovmsheruTe meny and on whom he might depend
in case these dissensions should come to a total
breach.

Among these was Lord Trevor,® then Privy Seal,
and afterwards President of the Council, an able man
in his way and bred to the law. He had been em-
ployed by the Tory ministry at the end of Queen
Anne's reign, and was by principle (if he had any
principle) a Jacobite. However, from interest and
policy, he became, like his brother-convert and brother-
lawyer, Lord Hareourt, as zealous a servant to the
Hanover family as any of those who had never been
otherwise ; for as these two men were too knowing in
their trade to swerve from the established principles of
their profession, they acted like most lawyers, who
generally look on princes like other clients, and, with-
out any r^ard to right or wrong — the equity or in-
justice of the cause — think themselves obliged to main-
tain whoever fees them last and pays them best.

There was an occurrence at the latter end of this
summer at Windsor relating to the court Lord Town-
sheqd then made to Lord Trevor, which I shall relate^
because I think it will give a short but strong sketch
both of Lord Townshend's and Sir Bobert Walpole's
temper ; but before I begin my relation I must pre-

8 Thomas first Lord Trevor, Solicitor-General in 1692, Attorney hi
1695, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1701, Privy Seal in 1726,
and President of the Council in 1730. Lord Hareourt had been Lord
Chancellor in Queen Anne's Tory ministry.

1728. Mtdg SKfiRRBlT. 115

mise that Sir Robert Walpole at this time kept a very
pretty young woman, daughter to a merchant, whose
name was Skerrett, and for whom he was said to have
given (besides an annual allowance) 5000/. as entrance-
money .•

One evening at Windsor the Queen asking Sir
Bobert Walpole and Lord Townshend where they had
dined that day, the latter said he had dined at home
with Lord and Lady Trevor ;^® upon which Sir Robert
Walpole said to Her Majesty, smiling, "My Lord,

^ Maria Skerrett was, however, a young lady of more distinction than
Lord Heryey's statement would seem to indicate. She was a familiar friend
of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the second of whose celebrated letters
(5th August, 1716) was addressed to her; and we iSnd her mentioned
sobaequently : —

*' I\oiekenhamf 1725, — Miss Skerrit is in the house tmth me*^

'^ Caoendisk Square, 1726,— Miss Shenit stayed aU the remainder of the
summer with me, ami we are mm come to tmon**
And agun —

**Isee everybody, but comxrse with nobody but des amis choisis ; tn the
firsi rank qf these are Lady Stafford and dear MoOy Skerrit,**

It is stated in a note to ladj Mary's Letters that *' she was maid of honour
to the Qneen." This seems hardly consistent with the terms in which we
find the Queen speaking of her, and I have not been able to trace her
name in any of the lists of the household. Sir Robert married her in
February or March, 1738, in six or seren months afW his first wife's death ;
and it is stated in the periodicals of the day that she had " 80,000/.
fortune." If this was not either a sneer or a blind, it would seem to con-
tradict the additional scandal* that Sir Robert had bought her. She died
hi three months after her marriage, leaving an only daughter, bom
long before, and for whom Sir Robert, when created a peer, obtained
the rank of an Earfs daughter, and she married a natural son of Genend
Churehill, mentioned ante, p. 23. The whole affidr, which seems to our
present notion almost incredibly scandalous, gave peculiar poignancy to the
satire of the * Beggars' Opera,' where Macheath, Lucy, and Polly reminded
the public of Walpole, his lady, and <* Molly Skerrett."

10 Lord Trevor was now 70 years old, and his wife, Anne Weldon, was
probably not much less. She had been a widow before her marriage with
Lord Trevor, and her eldest son by him was now 27 years of age. So that
Sir Robert's pleasantry would have been very innocent if it had not been
embittered by the political sneer.

i2

116 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Cvkp. V.

Madam, I think is grown coqtiet from a long widow-
hood, and has some design upon my Lady Trevor's
virtue, for his assiduity of late in that family is grown
to be so much more than common civility, that without
this solution I know not how to account for it" What
made this raillery of Sir Robert Walpole's very ex-
cusable and impossible to shock my Lord's prudery,
let him pique himself ever so much on the chastity of
his character, was, that my good Lady Trevor, besides
her strict life and conversation, was of the most vir-
tuous forbidding countenance that natural ugliness, age,
and small-pox ever compounded. However, Lord
Townshend, affecting to take the reproach literally, and
to understand what Sir Robert meant to insinuate of
the political court he paid to the husband as sensual
designs upon the wife, with great warmth replied,
" No, Sir, I am not one of those fine gentlemen who
find no time of life, nor any station in the world, pre-
servatives against follies and immoralities that are
hardly excusable when youth and idleness make us
most liable to such temptations. They are liberties.
Sir, which I can assure you I am as far from taking
as from approving; nor have I either a constitution
that requires such practices, a purse that can support
them, or a conscience that can digest them." Whilst
he uttered these words his voice trembled, his coun-
tenance was pale, and every limb shook with passion.
But Sir Robert Walpole, always master of his temper,
made him no other answer than asking him with a
smile, and in a very mild tone of voice, ** What, my
Lord, all this for my Lady Trevor ?"

The Queen grew uneasy, and, to prevent Lord

1728. BEFENGB OF DETAILS. 117

Townshend's replying or the thing being pushed any
farther, only laughed, and began immediately to talk
on some other subject"

If I am thought to be too particular in relating little
circumstances of this kind, all I can say for myself is,
that I have no guide to guess at what will please other
people in reading these papers but what I find pleases
myself best in works of the like nature ; and one good
authority, I am sure, I have for believing these sort
of incidents are generally not disagreeable, because
Machiavel, I remember, in the proem to his History of
Florence, speaking of such little particulars, says : —

*' Se niuna cosa diletta o insigna nella historia, e quella che
particolarmente si discrivi ; se niuna lettione e utile a quelli
chi goyemano le republiche, e quella che dimostra la ca^oni
de gli odii e delle divisioni ; accioche possano, con il pcricolo
d' idtri diventati savi, mantenersi uniti ; e se ogni essempio di

It It 18 odd that Lord Hervey should not allude (if it had ever hap-
pened) to the much more remarkable altercation and personal gcujffle between
Walpole and Townshend, said to have oocurred at Mrs. Selwyn's, in
Cleveland Court, and supposed to have been the original of the celebrated
quarrel scene between Peachem and Lockit hi the ' Beggars* Opera.' Coxe,
who (as far as I know) first told the story, does not tpecffy his authority,
and dates it in 1729. Lord Mahon repeats it, but assigns no authority,
and places it under the date of 1730, just before Townshend's resignation.
This would seem the more probable, as after such a scene it is hard to
imagine the parties could have continued to sit in the same cabinet ; but as
the * Beggars' Opera' was played on the 29th January, 1728, it is certain
either that the date of the historians is an anachronism, or that Gay alluded
to some earlier dispute, or that the story was made from the scene.

I must here observe that the first appearance of the * Beggars' Opera' has
been commonly placed in November, 1727, and on what looks like con-
clusive authority,~a letter of Swift's to Gay, dated 27th November, which
talks of the opera as then both played and printed : but this letter will be
seen, on close examination, to be a fusion of two letters— one written in
November, 1727, and the second three months later ; or the Dean may
have kept the letter three months before he finished it. This difficulty is
not noticed by any of the editors.

VOL, I. I 3

118 LOBJ) HBRVEY'B MBMOIRS. Chap, V.

republica muove, quelli che si leggono della propria, muovono
molto piu, e molto piii sono utili.''

" If there is anything in history which either deli^^ts or
instructs, it is particular description. If anything be usefal to
those citizens who have the goyemment of the commonwealth
in their hands, it is that which represents the causes of former
feuds and dissensions, that they may become wise at other
people's expense and keep themselves united ; and if examples
from other countries make an impression on the reader, cer-
tainly those drawn from his own coimtry must affect him much
stronger and be much more useful." _^

1729. COMPLAINTS AGAINST SPAIN. 119

CHAPTER VI.

Complaints agiunst Spain — The Beggars* Opera — Duchess of Queensbeny
forbidden the Court — Deficiency in the Civil List — Sir Paul Methuen —
Dispute between George II. and the King of Prussia— Royal duel —
Lord Hervey's return from Italy — His political position — Breaks with
Mr. Pulteney-— Treaty of Seville— Debate on the Hessian Troops— De-
bate on Dunkirk, and Lord Henrey's Pamphlet — ^Tovnshend resigns —
Lord Hervey Vice-Chamberlain.

When the FarlianieDt met this year \2l8t Januarj/] the
a&irs of Europe were as unsettled as ever, so that the
same complaints were continued by the Opposition, and
the same defence made by the Administration ; that is,
the opponents and malcontents complained that our
peace was imperfect, and the ministers insisted that the
most imperfect peace was better than a certain war.
The complaints of the merchants, however, upon the in-
terruption they everywhere met with in their trade, and
particularly upon the depredations of the Spaniards in
the West Indies, were so loud and so numerous, that
it was impossible for the ministers to prevent them
stating their grievances to the Parliament and asking
that redress from them which they had in vain solicited
at Court.

The ministers and their party in Parliament were
imprudent enough, when the affiiir came to be examined
there, to seem to take the part of the Spaniards against
our own merchants, and to endeavour to soften the
injustice of the one and to lessen the losses of the other.
This conduct was very unpopular without doors, but

VOL. I.

120 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VI.

the ministers carried their point within, and prevented
the Parliament from coming to any vigorous resolutions
of ordering reprisals, or from doing anything more than
making a general address to the King to recommend
the merchants and the trade of his kingdom to his
care and protection.

It was in this winter, just before the Parliament met,
that the King was prevailed upon to send for his son
from Hanover. His ministers told him that if the
Prince's coming were longer delayed, an address from
Parliament and the voice of the whole nation would
certainly oblige his Majesty to send for him, and con-
sequently he would be necessitated to do that with a
bad grace which he might now do witii a good one.^
♦ « * *

Among the remarkable occurrences of this winter I
cannot help relating that of the Duchess of Queens-
berry being forbid the Court, and the occasion of it.
One Gay, a poet, had written a ballad opera, which
was thought to reflect a little upon the Court, and a
good deal upon the Minister.^ It was called the
' Beggars' Opera,' had a prodigious run, and was so
extremely pretty in its kind, that even those who were
most glanced at in the satire had prudence enough to

1 Prince Frederick (born in 1707) arrived in England on the 4th of
December, 1728, and was soon after created Prince of Wales, and sworn of
the Privy Council. Some pages of the MS. are here wanting.

> There can be no doubt of this ; but we know, from Gay's letter to
Swift, 22nd October, 1727, that his opera had been jftmshed before his dis-
appointment from and final breach with Walpole and the Court There
was of course time enough between this disappointment and the representa-
tion of the piece to add some satiric touches against the minister ; it would
else be inconceivable that Gray should have written such a piece while he
was soliciting and expecting a place at Court.

1729. DUCHESS OP QTJEENSBERBY. 121

disguise their resentment by chiming in with the uni-
versal applause with which it was performed. Gay,
who had attached himself to Mrs. Howard, and been
disappointed of preferment at Court, finding this
couched satire upon those to whom he imputed his
disappointment succeed so well, wrote a second part to
this opera, less pretty, but more abusive, and so little
disguised, that Sir Robert Walpole resolved, rather than
suffer himself to be produced for thirty nights together
upon the stage in the person of a highwayman, to make
use of his friend the Duke of Grafton's authority as
Lord Chamberlain to put a stop to the representation
of it." Accordingly this Theatrical Craftsman was pro-
*hibited at every playhouse. Gay, irritated at this
bar thrown in the way both of his interest and his re-
venge, zested the work with some supplemental invec-
tives, and resolved to print it by subscription. The
Duchess of Queensberry* set herself at the head of this
undertaking, and solicited every mortal that came in
her way, or in whose way she could put herself, to
subscribe. To a woman of her quality, proverbially

s I am at a loas to account for this statement, which, though it accords
with that generally receiyed, seems to me wholly erroneous. * Polly' is
very stupid, and equally inoifensire: the scene is placed in the West
Indies, where Macheath, under the name of Morano, becomes a Spanish
pirate, appears but little on the scene, and is hanged ; while Po//y, after
being kidnapped and sold as a slave, marries an Indian Prince. The
piece seems to me to be as free from all political allusion as it is
destitute of any kind of dramatic merit. Lord Hervey's description
applies to the * Beggars' Opera' itself, but not at all to ^ PoUy* Nor
can I understand why the latter should have been prohibited, except to
punish the author for his former sallies. Gay, in a preface, asserts
that he had no satirical design, and certainly the printed piece justifies his
statement.

4 Lady Catherine Hyde, granddaughter of Lord Chancellor Clarendon,
a lady of great beauty and eccentricity, who retained some traces of the
former, and strong symptoms of the latter, to her death in 1777.

122 LOBD HERYEY'S BiSMOIBS. Ohav. YI.

beauti&ly and at the top of the polite and fashionable
world, people were ashamed to reihse a guinea, though
they were afraid to giYe it Her solicitati(His were so
uniYersal and so pressing, that she came eYen into ihe
Queen's apartment, went round the Drawing-room, and
made eYen the King's servants contribute to the print-
ing of a thing which the King had forbid being acted.
The King, when he came into the Drawii^-room,
seeing her Grace Yery busy in a corner with three or
four men, asked her what she had been doing* She
answered, ^^ What must be agreeable, she was sure, to
anybody so humane as his Majesty, for it was an act
of charity, and a charity to which she did not despair
of bringing his Majesty to contribute." Enough wad
said for each to understand the other, and thoij^h the
King did not then (as the Duchess of Queensberry
reported) appear at all angry, yet this proceeding of
her Grace's, when talked OYcr in priYate between his
Majesty and the Queen, was so resented, that Mr. Stan-
hope, then Vice-Chamberlain to the King, was sent in
form to the Duchess of Queensberry to desire her to
forbear coming to Court; his message was Yerbal.
Her answer, for fear of mistakes, she desired to send
in writing, wrote it on the spot, and this is the literal
copy: —

" Feb. 27, 1728-9.
" That the Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well
pleased that the King hath given her so agreeable a command
as to stay from Court, where she never came for diversion, but
to bestow a great civility on the King and Queen ; she hopes
by such an unprecedented order as this is, that the King will
see as few as he wishes at his Court, particularly such as dare
to think or speak truth. I dare not do otherwise, and ought
not nor could have imagined that it would not have been the

1789. DUCHESS OF QUKBKSBEBBT. 123

yery highest compliment that I could poseihly pay the King to
endeayour to sapp(»rt trath and umooence in his house, parti-
cularly when the Eang and Queen both told me that they had
not read Mr. Gay*s play. I have certainly done right, then,
to stand by my own words rather than his Grace of Grafton's,
who hath neither made use of truth, judgment, nor honour,
through this whole affidr, either for himself or his friends.

*^ C. QUEENSBBRRY."

When her Grace had finished this paper^ drawn with
more spirit than accuracy^ she gave it to Mr. Stanhope,
who desired her to think again, asked pardon for
being so impeiptinent as to offer her any advice^ but
begged she would give him leave to carry an answer
less rough than that she had put into his hands. Upon
this she wrote another, but so much more disrespectfiil,
that he desired the first again and delivered it

Most people blamed the Court upon this occasion.
What the Duchess of Queensberry did was certainly
impertinrat; but the manner of resenting it was
thoij^ht impolitic. The Duke of Queensberry laid
down his employment of Admiral of Scotland upon it,
thoi:^h very much and very kindly pressed by the
King to remain in his service.

This employment some time after was given to Lord
Stair upon his writing the most submissive and suppli-
cating letter to Sir Robert Walpole, setting forth the
convenience it would be to his distressed, broken for-
tune^ defiiring Sir Bobert's good nature to draw a veil
over all that was past, and giving the strongest as-
surances of his future good behaviour.

Towards the end of this session of Parliament [2Srd
April^ was made that most unpopular and &mous

124 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VL

demand of the 115,000?., to make good the pretended
deficiency in the Civil List funds, which, by an unfair
way of calculating and stating the accounts, as well as
a forced construction of the Act of Parliament, were
said to have fallen so much short of 800,000?. a-year,
designed at all hazards to be secured to his Majesty
when the Civil List was settled.

The truth of the matter was, that in the first place
there was not the deficiency, and in the next, if there
had been, it was doubtfiil by the wording of the Act
whether the Parliament was obliged to make it up, and
whether these funds had not been given to the King at
his own desire in the beginning of his reign, not as a
sum certain, but for better for worse, for more or for
less. Sir Bobert Walpole always denied the having
advised this demand, and scrupled not to excuse himself
to his firiends by saying he had opposed it so long and
so strenuously, that the King had intimated to him, if
he could not or would not do it, his Majesty would
find those who were both able and willing. Sir Bobert
Walpole always said it was Lord Wilmington who had
put the King upon this measure, with the double view
of making his own court and prejudicing Sir Bobert
Walpole ; his Lordship knowing that he should have
the merit to the King of forming this project, and Sir
Bobert the demerit first of opposing it, and then all the
trouble and unpopularity of bringing it to bear. But
this conjecture, I believe, was doing Lord Wilming-
ton's dexterity too much honour ; his views were never
so extended or so complicated ; they were generally
more simple, and his reasoning, I dare say, went no
farther than this : " Ths King loves money^ and mU

1729. BIB PA.UL MBTHUEN. 126

love me if I tell him how he mxiy get som^!* In
short, got it was, but with great difficulty and great
clamour [by a majority of 214 to 104], no one body
who Yoted for it thinking it a proper grant or a reason-
able demand.

His Eoyal Highness [Prince Frederick], who began to
hate his father very heartily and not very secretly/ was
extremely flippant in his comments on this measure, and,
though he would have done the same thing in the same
situation, pretended to disapprove entirely his father's
conduct on this occasion; by which means he con-
trived to be doubly in the wrong — in the first place,
for saying what he ought only to have thought, and,
in the next, for not thinking what he ought not to have
said.

The end of this Session was remarkable only for one
change, which was Sir Paul Methuen's quitting the
employment of Treasurer of the Household. His pre-
tence for quitting was disliking the conduct of the
Court in general; but his true reason was his disap-
probation, not of any actual sin, but their sin of omis-
sion in not making him Secretary of State, an employ-
ment he had once unaccountably in the late reign
obtained,* and quitted when Lord Townshend and Sir

ft Horace Walpole remarks, that the diflsension between father and son is
remarkable in the Home of Hanooer. The fact of the dissension is unde-
niable, but it arises, I thkk, not from any peculiarity in that family, but
from die nature of a representative constitution, which generates parties^
and, if one party has the confidence of the King, the other endeavours, and
generally succeeds, in captivating the favour of the heir-apparent

0 He became Secretary of State in the absence of Mr. Stanhope, under
the first Townshend-and-Walpole ministry, in June, 1716, and went out
with them in April, 1717 ; and in 1725 returned to office as Treaaurer of

VOL. I.

126 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VI.

Robert Walpole were disgraced. The character of
this man was a very singular one : it was a mixture of
Spanish formality and English roughness, strongly
seasoned with pride, and not untinctured with honour.
He was romantic in his turn to the highest degree of
absurdity; odd, impracticable, passionate, and obsti-
nate ; a thorough coxcomb, and a little mad. As to
the affair of party, he called himself always a Whig ;
after he had quitted he went too often to Court to be
well with the Opposition, and too seldom to Parliament
to be well with either side — a conduct which procured
him the agreeable mixed character of courtier without
profit, and a country gentleman without popularity.

This summer [17th May] the King went to
Hanover for the first time, to take possession there and
settle his affairs. He left the Queen Begent, which
his son took extremely ill.'' Lord Townshend went
with the King to Hanover, and gained a little ground
there, which he soon lost again at his return; Sir
Robert Walpole and he being irreconcilable, and the
first trying to support himself by the Queen, the other
by the King.

It was said, but not truly, though generally believed,
that the Queen's powers as Regent were abridged by
orders sent firom the King as soon as he got into Hol-
land, at the instigation of Lord Townshend.

the Household. He was the son of Mr. Methuen, who had been long
minister in Portugal, and negotiated the famous treaty that went by his name.
•^ George II., when Prince, had been, on his h^iher'B first visit to Ger.
many, left Regent ; but then George I. had no queen. We know nothing
of what ofience might have been given or taken on that occasion, but the
Prince was never after appointed Regent ; and be himself never appointed
his own son.

1729. THB KINO'S VISIT TO HANOVER. 127

Whilst the King was at Hanover he had several little
German disputes with his brother of Prussia,' the par-
ticulars of which being about a few cart-loads of hay, a
mill, and some soldiers improperly enlisted by the King
of Prussia in the Hanoverian state, I do not think them
worthy of being considered in detail ; and shall say no-
thing further about these squabbles than that, first or
last, both of them contrived to be in the wrong. And
as these two princes had some similar impracticabilities in
their temper, so they were too much alike ever to agree,
and from this time forward hated one another with
equal imprudence, inveteracy, and openness.

It was reported, and I believe not without foundation,
that our Monarch on this occasion sent or would have
sent a challenge of single combat to his Prussian Ma-
jesty ; but whether it was carried and rejected, or whe-
ther the prayers and remonstrances of Lord Townshend
prevented the gauntlet being actually thrown down, is a
point which to me at least has never been cleared.

There was another subject of dispute between the
Kings of England and Prussia, which I forgot to enu-
merate, though it was the only one really of conse-
quence, and that was with regard to the affairs of Meck-
lenburg. The short statement of their differences on this
article was, whether the Prussian or Hanoverian troops
(both ordered into Mecklenburg by a decree of the
Aulic Council) should have the greatest share (under
the pretence of keeping peace) in plundering the people
and completing the ruin of that miserable duchy, already

• The King of Pruaria had married, 14th November, 1706, Dorothea
Sophia, the only daughter of George I. Between him and George II.
there was almost Theban enmity.

128 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VI.

reduced to such a state of calamity by the tyrannical
conduct of their most abominable, deposed, or rather
suspended duke.

Just after the King's return from Hanover [llth
Sept'jy Lord Hervey, after having been abroad a year
and a half for his health, returned from Italy.* He
loved Mr. Pulteney, and had obligations to Sir Robert
Walpole ; he had lived in long intimacy and personal
friendship with the former, and in his public and poli-
tical conduct he always attached himself to the latter.
But as the dissensions of these two men were now grown
to such a height that it was impossible for anybody to
live well with both. Lord Hervey at his return found
he should be brought to the long-feared disagreeable
necessity of quitting the one or the other.

His wife loved Mr. Pulteney and hated Sir Robert
Walpole. Sir Robert had formerly made love to her,
but unsuccessftiUy," which had produced the mutual en-
mity generally consequential on such circumstances —
love in these cases being like a ball, which the greater
strength it comes with, if it meets with resistance the
farther it rebounds back from the point at which it was
aimed. Sir Robert Walpole, therefore, detested Lady
Hervey and Lady Hervey him. So that all her interest
in her husband was employed to draw him off from Sir
Robert Walpole, and attach himself to Mr. Pulteney ;
and as she knew her husband's aflTection to Mr. Pulteney,

9 He must then have set out yery soon after moving the address in
January, 1728.

10 I cannot refrain from noticing this expression ; which, considering the
position of all the parties, and the exemplary character of Lady Hervey,
seems to me strangely tame and nonchalant.

1729. LOED HERVETS POLITICAL POSITION. 129

she was certain nothing but the weight of interest could
turn the scale in this contest on the side of Sir Robert
Walpole.

In order, therefore, to lighten the balance of interest,
or rather to counterbalance it, Pulteney and she together
had formed a scheme, before Lord Hervey came over,
to induce Lord Bristol ^^ to make his son such an allow-
ance as should indemnify him for throwing up a pen-
sion of 1000?. a-year, which he now received from the
Court.

This project, by the joint endeavours of Pulteney and
the dowager Duchess of Marlborough, who would have
done anything to gain him over from the Court,^'* ♦ ♦
[at last so far succeeded, that Lord Hervey wrote to
Sir Robert Walpole a letter, in which, after some
introductory matter, he saidj, —

'^ You know the situation of my afiairs and my opinion so
well, that it is unnecessary for me to say, notwithstanding the
King's favour must be very convenient to me in one sense, yet
the receiving no mark of it but in the manner I have formerly
done is what I must decline.

" All I have at present therefore, Sir, to beg of you is, that
you would have the goodness to assure the Eang of the grati-
tude with which I think of his goodness towards me ; that I
received what he bestowed upon me with double satisfaction,
as I imagined it an earnest (in case I lived) of some future

1^ Lord Bristol was extremely generous in such matters. When Lord
Hervey was finally turned out in 1742, he was offered a pension of 3000/.,
which he rejected, so much to the satisfaction and pride of Lord Bristol, that
he immediately increased Lord Hervey's already liberal income by that sum.

IS Here a sheet of the MS. is unfortunately lost : it evidently detailed
the proceedings of Lady Hervey, the Duchess, and Pulteney, to separate
Lord Hervey from Sir Robert Walpole— circumstances very important to
his personal history, and which produced the resignation of his pendon
and his letter to Walpole.

VOL. L K

130 LORD HERVBTfi MBM01R6. Chap. VI.

iaark of his distinction, and was not insensible to liiat part of
the obligation of its being conferred at a time lirhen I was in-^
capable of deserving it by any present services, and so unlikely
to repay it by any future ones. But as I am now capable of
attending in Parliament,^' and that those who either speak or
vote there under my circumstances are exposed to disagree-
able insinuations and reflections upon one's conduct from rnali^
cious and envious blockheads, who perhaps could find no other
answer to one's arguments ; so I must entreat the King, when-
ever he shall think proper, to consider me in some manner
which I shall not be ashamed to own, and in the mean time to
give me leave to serve him without those inducements that must
take off the merit of those little services towards him, that make
them liable to be misconstrued by the rest of the world, and
consequently less cheerfully performed by myself.

^^ I know the King's reception of this message will depend
so entirely on the person who conveys it, and the manner of its
being represented, that I feel a security (from the repeated
marks and professions of your friendriiip for me) in its going
through your hands, which no other method of delivering it
could give me.

^' I am persuaded you will assure him (notwithstanding what
is reported ^*) that my taking this step proceeds from no ill
humour, distaste, or coolness to his service, and that my future
conduct will be a proof how ill such reports are founded.

** I am convinced, too, that you think what I am doing right,
as it will set my character in a better light towards him and
towards the world, as it will exempt my conduct from all im-
pertinent reflections upon it, set my own mind more at ease,
and permit me on all occasions with less constraint to show
myself, ^ Dear Sir,

*• Your most obedient, 4c.

" Hervby,"

IS Lord Hervey had been in Parliament for Bury since March, 1725,
but it does not appear that he ever spoke, except in moving the address in
January, 1728.

14 An allusion no doubt to rumoors of his oomnnmications with Polteney.

1729. TRKA.TY OP SKTILLB. 131

This letter was far from pleasing either Sir Robert
or Mr. Fulteney; the first looked upon it as a gentle
preface to forsaking his service, the other as a bond for
continuing in it;^^ especially as Lord Hervey, at the
same time he told Mr. Fulteney of this letter, thanked
him for the trouble he had given himself in the nego-
tiation with his iather, but said the same desire of being
at his liberty that had made him throw up his pension,
must prevent, too, his acceptance of his father's allow-
ance, since the conditions were his immediately opposing
the measures of the Court in Parliament.

From this time the friendship between Lord Hervey
and Mr. Fulteney began to cool, and soon after turned
into the other extreme ; but Lord Hervey, on his return
out of the country, finding Sir Bobert Walpole, upon
the step he had taken, suspected his defection, assured
him he would take the first opportunity on the meeting
of the Parliament publicly to demonstrate himself as
mudi attached to his interest as ever.

Before the Farliament met [13*4 January^ 1703],
Sir Bobert Walpole had die skill to contrive and the
good fortune to conclude a treaty with Spain, which
extremely facilitated the business of the Court this year
in Parliament, strengthened the power and credit of
Sir Bobert both in the one and the other, and revived
the spirits of all his friends, followers, and adherents.

This treaty, called the Treaty of Seville (from the
Court of Spain residing there when it was made), was

1* And BO it seems. It plidnty sajrs, that if Lord Hervey does not get
some agreeable office he will go into Opposition — which would of course
displease Walpole ; but that if he should, he will join the AdministratioD —
which of course would displease Pultenej.

k2

132 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VI.

negotiated by Mr, Vice-Chamberlain Stanhope,^* then
Ambassador and Plenipotentiary in Spain from this
Court, and concluded November 8, n,s, 1729. The plan
of this treaty was Sir Robert Walpole^s, and the sub-
stance of it absolute peace between the three Crowns of
France, Spain, and England ; reciprocal guarantee of
their respective possessions, all former treaties of com-
merce to be again in force, reparations to be made to the
merchants of England for captures, seizures, injuries,
depredations, &c. ; and this account to be settled within
the space of three years by commissioners appointed for
that purpose. But the principal article that induced the
Court of Spain to come into this treaty was, the ex-
changing the six thousand neutral troops, who, by the
Quadruple Alliance, were to secure the eventual succes-
sion of Don Carlos to the states of Tuscany, Parma, and
Placentia, into six thousand Spaniards, who were forth-
with to be introduced into Italy, to garrison Leghorn,
Porto-ferraio, Parma, and Placentia, in the same man-
ner that by the Quadruple Alliance these places were to
be garrisoned by the neutral Swiss troops.

Immediately upon the conclusion of this treaty, the
standing forces in England were reduced above five
thousand men, but not in the manner that gave satis-
faction any more than the number ; the latter not being
thought sufficient, and no corps being broken, but the
whole reduction made by lessening the number of pri-
vate men in different regiments.

However, the treaty and the reduction were both
mightily braced of by the Court, and even from the

10 Afterwards Lord Harrington, of whom we shall see much more in the
sequel.

1729. DEBATE ON THE TREATY. 133

Throne itself at the opening of the subsequent Session ;
and notwithstanding the various objections made to this
treaty, considering all things, it was certainly a very
advantageous treaty for England, as it revived our de-
clining trade, put a stop to all the inconveniences com-
plained of in the West Indies, and an end to all preten-
sions to Gibraltar, notwithstanding that place was only
virtually included and not specifically mentioned in the
treaty. Nor indeed would it have been possible to have
obtained this peace with Spain, had it not been for the
Queen of Spain's having nothing at heart but the secu-
rity of her son's succession in Italy, and being ready to
grant any terms, provided England and France would
consent immediately to the introduction of the Spanish
troops. She saw all her golden dreams of grandeur
from the Vienna Treaty vanished, was exasperated to the
last degree at the shuffling conduct of the Emperor, and
resolved therefore, if possible, to secure the only thing
which she found was now attainable for her son.

When this treaty came under consideration in Par-
liament, it was objected, first, that this exchange of neu-
tral for Spanish troops was an absolute violation of the
Quadruple Alliance, and so derogatory to the honour and
interest of the Emperor, that it was impossible for him
ever to acquiesce under it, and consequently that this
boasted peace was nothing more than the herald of a war.

In the next place it was said, that sufficient care had
not been taken of the merchants, and that the quiet
possession of Gibraltar was not fiilly secured, for want
of a specific resignation of it in the treaty.

To the first of these objections it was answered, that
the variation from the Quadruple Alliance was only more

134 LOBD HERVEY'8 MEMOIRS. Chap. YX.

effectually to secure that to Don Carlos which was de-
signed for him by the Quadruple Alliance ; consequently,
that this treaty was conformable to tibe spirit if not to
the letter of the other ; that it would prevent ike fiirther
suspension of the execution of that article of the Qua*
druple Alliance which had been so many years, unjustly
to Spain, delayed by the Emperor ; that it would save
England the third part of the expense of the neutral troops
which, by the former treaty, she was bound to bear; and
that as for the Emperor's refusing to acquiesce under
this disposition, all the great Powers in Europe resolving
to execute it, the Emperor must know his opposition to
it would be vain — consequently, he would certainly not
think of making any. It was further said, that as all
treaties must be founded on reciprocal advantages to
the contracting parties, so it was not to be imagined
Spain, out of mere love to England, would renounce
her pretensions to Gibraltar, restore us the long inter-
rupted advantages of our commerce, and promise re*
paration for the losses of our merchants, without some
benefit proposed to herself in return ; and as that benefit
was nothing more than the confirmation of that which
she had already a right to, the King of England must
have been very ill-advised if he had demurred one
moment upon the acceptance of those conditions.

To the objection that sufficient care had not been
taken of the merchants, it was answered, that all the
care was taken that the nature of such a transaction
would admit; that the accounts of the losses were to be
stated, the adjustment of them to be referred to com-
missaries, and that it would have been the highest im-
prudence to have deferred the signing of this treaty and

1729. PEBiiXB ON THE TBBATY. IBS

deprived ourselves of all the intermediate advantages of
it till this affiiir could have been terminated^ which
everybody knows muat be a work of time.

As to Gibraltar, it wa4 said that though Gibraltar
was not particularly named, yet there could not be the
least room to dispute its being included in this treaty;
and if there was any little delicacy in the Spanish Court
from a point of honour, that might make them shy of
naming it, yet if England could effectually and securely
get the thing she wanted, sure it would not he very jus-
tifiable to have refosed it, merely on a cavil upon the
words by which it was granted and oonsigned.

Upon the whole, after many proposals made in the
House of Lords to cast censure on the Treaty of Seville,
which were all rejected, it was voted bweficial, safe,
and honourable. In the House of Commons, though
often incidentally mentioned, no vote ever passed in its
favour or condemnation.

There was another thing strongly urged for the
honour of the King in making this treaty, and in con*
tradiction to the insinuations frequently made of his
acting on all occasions more as Elector of Hanover than
King of England; and this was, that when, by the divi-
sion of the Courts of Vienna and Spain, it was in the
King's power to oome to accommodation with which of
the two he pleased, it was very evident that he chose to
make up with the Power whose friendship was most bene-
ficial to England, and as evident that if he had considered
himself as Elector of Hanover only, he would certainly
have made his first overtures of reconciliation to the
Emperor, and not have taken a step to irritate him
further.

136 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap, VI.

When the debate of the Hessians came on [14<A
February^ everything Pulteney had said to Lord
Hervey " was insinuated, but much more gently than
he had su^ested and most people expected. The
arguments against these troops were, the great expense
of them, their being unnecessary if the Treaty of Seville
was so advantageous as its advocates represented, and,
if kept up for the defence of Hanover, a violation of the
Act of Settlement.

In answer to these arguments, the expense was ad*
mitted, but the question said to be not what the expense
wa^ but whether necessary or not; and that the Empe-
ror's not having yet agreed to the Treaty of Seville did
make it necessary ; that these troops being kept up by
the consent of Parliament obviated the objection of their
being maintained in contravention of the Act of Settle-
ment, even though it were allowed that their only use
was to defend the Hanover dominions. This proved
the legality of continuing them in our pay for that pur-
pose ; and as for the equity of it, though nobody would
wish England engaged in a war for the sake of Hanover, .
yet if Hanover was attacked for the sake of England,
no Englishman with honour or common justice would
desire to see Hanover in that case abandoned and un-
succoured by those on whose account it was attacked*
That this had been the sense of a former Parliament, a
vote having been passed to assure the late King that if
reprisals were attempted to be made on his Majesty as
Elector of Hanover, for the steps he had taken as King
of England, the Parliament would take care as vigor-

17 This no doubt refers to some communication between Pulteney and
Lord Henrey, probably related in the lost sheet (on^d, p. 129).

1729. DEBATE ON THE HE8SIANS. 187

ously to defend that country, in such a case, as their
own.

It was further urged for the continuance of these
12,000 Hessians, that there could be nothing more con*
tradictory to what had been advanced concerning the
Treaty of Seville being productive of a war, than the
advice now given by the same people to disband the
Hessians ; since if any disturbance was expected to be
given by the Emperor, these troops were absolutely
necessary to prevent any such design taking effect
Whether, therefore, he intended to make any diversion
in the North to prevent the execution of the Treaty of
Seville in Italy, or whether he might give the Dutch
any trouble in resentment for their acceding to it, the
Hessians must be the principal check upon him in one
case, and what the Dutch had to depend upon in the
other.

It was, therefore, asserted by those who spoke for
the Court, to be not only for the honour of England to
continue those troops, as it enabled the King to fulfil
his engagements with his allies, but that it was also
right in an interested prudential light, as it might deter
the Court of Vienna from entering into measures to
defeat the hopes of a general pacification, and spare the
fiiture expense which an ill-timed economy at this
critical juncture might afterwards draw upon us.

The debate lasted till ten o'clock, and the question
was at last carried for the Court by a great majority*"

In a few days after this debate Sir William Wynd-
ham moved the House to appoint a day to consider the

18 ^a to 169, Lofd Hervey being one of the ministerial tdkr$.

188 I'ORD H£RY£Y'8 HSMOmS. Cbulf. VX.

state of the aation, which oould not be refiised by th^
Court party, though they would have been very glad
to avoid it| scrutinies, esamii^ationsy and siftinp seldom
turning to the account of those who have the reins of
power and the care of the public in their hands.

When the day came the ministry were totally
ignorant in what quarter and on what paint they
should be attacked ; but concluded it would either be
on the Treaty of Seville, the national debt, or the com^-
plaints of the merchants. To their great surprise it
proved to be upon the state of Dunkirk; which har-
bour was proved by many witnesses at the bar of the
House to be so well repaired, that ships of burden, con-
trary to the Treaty of Utrecht, could go in and out
with the same ease as before the demolition of it

This thing was so well opened by Sir William
Wyndham, and the facts he asserted so ftdly proved,
that the whole House was in a flame^ and the ministry
stronger pushed than they had ever been on any occa*
sion before. In order to ground a vote of censure on
Mr. Walpole for suflTering our present friends, the
French, in this barefaced manner to violate their treaty
with us, an account was demanded of all his transact
tions with regard to this affair during his residence
as Ambassador at the Court of France ; copies of the
memorials he had presented there, and the letters that
had passed between him and the Secretaries of State
here, were likewise demanded ; and, in short, so many
papers were asked for, that the Opposition overshot
the mark, for, time being necessary to lay these papers
before the House, and time being everything to those
in power, the further consideration of this affair, after

1729. BUmsntK. 189

a debate that lasted till four o'clock in the morning^
was adjourned for eight days, and in that space matters
wwe 90 well contrived^ so suecessfiilly carried on, and
so expeditiously executed by the ministry^ l^at the
first paper that was read in the House on the day ap-
pointed for the further consideration of the state of
Dunkirk was the copy of an absolute order from the
King of France to the Governor of Dunkirk to put
that harbour in the situation it ought to be by the
article relating to it in the Treaty of Utrecht; and if
any works contrary to the Treaties of Utrecht and the
Hague had been erected, this order enjoined them
forthwith to be demolished.

The true state of this affiiir was, that the inhabitants
of Dunkirk, from the year 1718 to the present time, had,
at their own expense, and though not by the command,
yet by the connivanoe of the Court of France, con-
stantly and gradually been working at this harbour to
repair it, and had so far succeeded that, the fortifica*
tions excepted, it was in almost as good a state as be-
fore the demolition.

Mr. Walpole (as appeared in the House of Com-
mons) had made several remonstrances at the Court of
France against this proceeding, and had received
several promises of justice being done ; but could never
obtain satisfaction by the performance of them. The
close league in which we then were with the French,
and had been from the time of the Treaty of Hanover,
the want we had of them, the fear of breaking with
them when we were well with no other Power in
Europe, and our earnest desire to conclude the Treaty
of Seville, had all concurred to make Mr. Walpole less

140 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VL

pressing oh the affair of Dunkirk than he would other-
wise have been, and perhaps than he ought to have
been; but as soon as he had obtained that very explicit
order from the Cardinal which I have already men-
tioned^ this Dunkirk storm, that was very near ship-
wrecking the Administration, entirely blew over ; and
those who raised it had nothing to comfort them for
not having demolished the Walpoles, but the glory of
bracing that their industry had re-demolished Dunkirk.

A more particular account of this affair may be seen
in a pamphlet, entitled * A Summary Account of the
State of Dunkirk,' &c., written by Lord Hervey."

There being no supplemental money-job to be done
for the Court at the end of this Session, such as the
115,000?. or a vote of credit, all Sir Robert Walpole's
Parliamfentary trouble for this year finished with the
Dunkirk business ; but his distress in the palace kept
him still anxious. Lord Townshend's quarrel with
him being got to that height that Lord Townshend
would neither act on with him nor go out ; he talked
every day of retiring, but did not stir ; the King was
brought so far that he had consented to let him go, but
would not force him out ; the Queen wished him gone,
but knew not how to make him go ; and Lord Towns-
hend, who, by quarrelling with Sir Robert Walpole and

19 Lord Heryey intended that this, and some others of his pamphlets,
should form an Appendix to these Memoirs, and he had stated in the original
MS. — ** I have two reasons for referring thus to papers in an appendix : the
one isy that, by not inserting the substance of them in the main^body of this
work, people may with more ease reject the reading of them, if their
curionty leads them not to more minute explanations on those subjects they
treat of; the other is, that it saves me the trouble of making extracts.*'

But the pamphlets are too numerous and bulky, and appear too obsolete,
to justify their reproduction m these volumes.

1129. LOUD TOWNSHEND BETIBES. 141

retiring into the country, thought to step quietly out of
a sinking ship, when he found the storm subsiding and
the ship not likely to sink, began to repent his having
turned his eyes to the shore, and had a mind to remain
on board. However, it was now too late, and Lord
Townshend having positively declared to the King in
the winter that he would quit, Sir Robert Walpole
had got the King's leave to tell Mr. Stanhope that he
should succeed Lord Townshend as Secretary of State.
Mr. Stanhope, as a reward for his good services in con-
cluding the Treaty of Seville, had been immediately
after created a Peer, by the title of Lord Harrington,
and was now at Paris settling at that Court a plan for
the execution of the Treaty of Seville by force, in case
the Emperor should by force oppose it.

Lord Hervey was to succeed Lord Harrington as
Vice-Chamberlain, and because it would have been a
great inconvenience to have the borough of Bury lie
open all the summer, it was necessary to give Lord
Hervey the gold key before the breaking up of the
Parliament, that he might be rechosen immediately.
This enabled Sir Robert Walpole to ask the King's
leave to send for the key from Lord Harrington, and
to promise him the seals in lieu of it as soon as he
came to England, which, of course, pushed Lord
Townshend out without Sir Robert seeming to take
this step directly to precipitate Lord Townshend's de-
parture. Accordingly, the key was sent for, and given
to Lord Hervey [7th May^ 1730] ; soon after Lord
Harrington came over he received the seals, and Lord
Townshend retired into the country. Never was any
minister more gently disgraced, yet never was any dis-

142 LORD HBRTEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. YI.

graced minister more thinly atfcended, not one man
sharing his fortune or seeming to repine at iV^ He had
made his court to the Prince by telling him that his
only reason for continuing in so long was in hopes of
finishing before he went the negotiation then on foot
for his Boyal Highness's marriage with a daughter of
Prussia. Lord Carteret was turned out of the Lieu-
tenancy of Ireland at the isame time, though not as a
friend of Lord Townshend^s^ for tiiey hated one another
mortally ; Lord Carteret having been, six years beforep
removed from being Secretary of State and sent into
this honourable Irish exile on Lord Townshend's re-
fusing to act with him in the Secretary's office. Lord
Carteret had the offer of the [Lord] Steward's Staff at
his return from Ireland, but refused it ; it was vacated
by the Duke of Dorset's being made Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland, and given, on Lord Carteret's declining it, to
Lord Chesterfield, who, on this occasion, made the
warmest profession to Sir Bobert Walpole that it was
possible to utter, acknowledging that his* attachment
this winter to Lord Townshend gave him no right to
expect this favour, and he concluded with saying, '^ I

so Sir Robert WaJpole explained the eaiue of the anghnl difieresce
between them in a few words : ^' As long gs the firm was Ibwnshendand
Watpoie^ all went well ; as soon as it became WcUpcte and Ihwnshendf
things went wrong.'* — Ooxe, i. 339.

*' Lord Townshend," says Lord Mahon, << left office with a most un-
blemished character, and, what is still less common, a most patriotic mode-
ration. When Lord Chesterfield went to Raynham on purpose to perauade
him to attend in the House of Lords on an important question, Townshend
answered, * I hare irrerocably determined to engage no more in politics.

I know I am eztrem^y warm, and I «m apprehensive I oMy be

hurried away by my temper and my personal animosities to adopt a line of
conduct which in my cooler moments I may regret' " — ^Mahon's • Hist, of
EngUnd/ vol u. pp. 208, 209.

1729. LORD WILlIINOT0K---^ia« FKLHAH. 143

had lost the game, but you have taken my cards into
your hand and recovered it" Upon Lord Carteret's
disgrace Lord Winchelsea quitted the Comptroller's
staff, having been always attached to Lord Carteret,
and in most things governed by him, though on this
occasion he certainly governed Lord Carteret, who had
always declared that any man who hoped to get power,
or hurt diose who possessed it, had better be a Gen-
tleman Usher within the palace than leave it open to
his rivals by retiring out of it.

Lord Wilmington, who had been kicked in die be-
gmning of the reign out of the House of Commons into
the House of Lords, received a promotion of the same
kind at this time ; he was made an Earl and Privy
Seal, to make way for Mr. Pelham *' in the lucrative
employment of Paymaster to the army, and was soon
after, on the death of Lord Trevor, made President of
the Council.

Mr. Pelham, the Duke of Newcastle's only brother,
was strongly attached to Sir Robert Walpole, and more
personally beloved by him than any man in England.
He was a gentlemanlike sort of man, of very good
character, with moderate parts, in the secret of every
transaction, which, added to long practice, made him
at last, though not a bright speaker, often a useftil one ;
and by the means of a general afiability he had fewer
enemies than commonly fidls to the share of one in so

high a rank.

— -' -■ — — -■■■

«i Henrj Pelham, afterwards First Lord of the Treasurj and Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer from 1743 to his death in March, 1754.

144 LOKD HERVEY'8 MEUOIBS. Chap. Vn.

CHAPTER vn.

Attempt of the Disenters to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts —
Walpole wishes to suppress it — ^Engages the Queen to induce Bishop
Hoadlej to dissuade the Dissenters — Hoadlejr's difficulties — Walpole's
arguments — ^Negotiation between the Dissenters and the Cabinet

The latter end of this summer, 1730, a design was
projected among all the Dissenters of England to
petition the Parliament in the next Session for the
repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, or at least
for an explanation of them in behalf of the Presby-
terians, so far as these acts comprehended or affected
them.

The Dissenters' plea for asking this favour of the
Parliament seemed very natural and reasonable ; they
said they had for above forty years shovoi themselves
steady friends to the constitution of England in the
State, and constant supporters of the established
government on Revolution principles ; they had served
hitherto without any reward, and now desired no other
gratuity than the bare removal of that unjust distinction
made between them and the rest of their fellow-subjects
under which they had so long laboured and by which
they were excluded from all employments of trust or
profit They said what made this request more rea-
sonable was, that the hardship they now complained of
had never been laid upon them at all, had they not
originally consented to it themselves^ and that the rea-

1730. TEST ACT. 145

son of their consenting to it had been merely for the
public good and the common Protestant cause ; circum-
stances at that time requiring their voluntary submis-
sion to this self-denial act in order to facilitate the
exclusion of Papists from all places of power when this
kingdom was on the brink of being subjected to their
sway under the authority of a Popish successor. They
further added that they had not only always shown
themselves unwavering and indefatigable champions for
the Protestant succession, but that they had equally
proved themselves firm and constant friends to what
was called the Whig party, and the set of men now in
power; consequently, if they could not get rid of this
stigmatising brand of reproach that declared them unfit
to be trusted with any employment in the executive
part of the civil government under a Whig Parliament,
they could never hope for relief at all, since the other
set of men, who called themselves the Church party,
and whom they had always opposed, should they come
into power, would not only from principle forbear to
show the Dissenters any favour, but would certainly
from resentment go still further, and probably load
them with some new oppression. Experience had
already proved the probability of this conjecture by the
Schism Act and other violent measures taken to op^
press them in the four last years of Queen Anne's
reign. In this manner they expressed their pretensions
to the favour they solicited ; and the reason they gave
for choosing to push this point immediately was, that
as the time of election for a new Parliament was now
drawing near, they thought it but reasonable to try
whether those who had been so long receiving favours

VOL. I. L

146 LORD HERYEY^S UEMOIRS. Chap. VII.

at their hands were ready to repay those favours with a
piece of common justice, and if they were not, that the
Presbyterians might in the ensuing elections have the
prudence at least of being quiet^ and forbear making
enemies, since they were to despair of making friends.

This design of the Presbyterians put the Adminis-
tration under great difficulties and into great apprehen*
sions ; they saw the uijustice of opposing their petition
if it came into Parliament, and the danger there was,
on the other hand, of showing it any countenance;
they knew it would seem the last ingratitude in any
who called themselves Whigs to reject it, and the
highest imprudence to receive it; for though the clergy
had hitherto been kept pretty quiet by nothing being
attempted either to restrain their power or to favour
their adversaries, yet the ministers were sure f^at if
any step was taken that looked like encouragement to
the Dissenters, it would inevitably turn all the parsons,
to a man, in the approaching elections, against every
one that should appear to forward it, and as to those
who did not forward it, the [Dissenting] ministers
would never give them a vote again ; and though in
every county in England and at every election since
the Revolution the Dissenters had hitherto stood by
the Whigs with a firmness like that of the Triarii* of
the Roman legion, they would certainly for the future
be as little to be depended upon as any of the tempo-
rary mercenary auxiliaries of a Cornish borough.

Sir Robert Walpole, therefore, to avoid this dilemma,
resolved, if possible, to prevail with the Presbyterians

1 The moct trustworthy veterans, who formed the third line, or

1730. BISHOP HOADLBY. 147

to postpone bringing their petition to Parliament till
some more proper opportunity offered.

He knew Hoadley, Bishop of Salisbury, was the
only man that could do him service upon this occasion,
or at least that he was the most able, both from his
capacity and the interest he had among this sect. But
the misunderstanding and coldness which the disposition
of the Bishopric of Durham * had created between the
Bishop of Salisbury and Sir Robert Walpole made him
ashamed to ask a favour of him, and a little diffident of
its being granted in case he did ask it.

It was therefore agreed that the Queen herself should
send for Bishop Hoadley and make it her request
that he would do all in his power to divert this im-
pending storm. Accordingly, he came to her one
evening to Kensington, where, with profusion of affa-
bility, she began with telling the Bishop the occasion
on which she had sent for him ; and that her reason for
pitching upon him was her knowing him to be not only
the ablest man to serve the King in this point, but be-
cause she looked upon him as one of the readiest to
serve him in all others; that his long uninterrupted
known zeal for his family, and the many services he
had already done them, were sufficient to convince her
of (iiis truth: but she assured him at the same time
that she did not depend on his personal attachment to

s In 1721 Dr. Talbot was translated from Salisburj to Durham, Dr. Willis
from Gloucester to Salisbury, and Hoadley from Bangor (where he had
made himself remarkable by what was called the Bangorian Controversy)
to Hereford. In 1723 he was translated to Salisbury. The *' coldness " no
doubt arose from Chandler's being chosen, in 1730, to succeed Talbot in
Durham ; but in 1734 Hoadley was finally placed at Winchester. Lord
Henrey was a particular friend of Hoadley.

L 2

148 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VII.

the King, or his fidelity to the interest of their family,
so far as to expect anything of him that should not be
perfectly consistent with the whole tenor of his conduct
with regard to all his other principles, writings, and
professions ; and for this reason, she told him, she had
not sent for him to desire he would act, write, or speak
on this occasion in the least tittle contradictory to his
former sentiments ; but to put him in a way both to
serve the Government and the Dissenters at the same
time. She told him that she did not want to know his
opinion upon the Repeal of the Corporation and Test
Acts, but believed she could convince him that, as all
times were not proper even to do proper things, so it
was impossible for the Dissenters, either for their own
or for the Whig interest, to choose one more improper
than the present to try their strength and their friends
on this favourite point. His Lordship, she said, could
not but be sensible of the divisions there were already
subsisting in the Whig party, and that this question, if
brought to a trial, must inevitably make another sub-
division in the common friends to the Grovemment and
her family ; for, as they were already split into minis-
terial and anti-ministerial Whigs, there would naturally
sprout up a third class on this debate^ who would call
themselves Church Whigs, and who would profess
themselves as great enemies to this innovation as any
of the High Church men among the Tories. To her
knowledge, she said, there were very many able, sensi-
ble, and honest men who were as zealous for the tolera-
tion on the foot it now stood, as they were for the
Revolution^ and the Protestant Government in the
manner it was now constituted ; but that they would

17S0. QUEENS APPEAL TO HOADLEY. 149

no more consent to break in on the power of the
Church, by further encroachments on the ecclesiastical
authority, than they would attempt any new restric-
tions on the prerogative of the Crown, and as little
contribute to introduce a universal imlimited freedom of
worship in the Church as a commonwealth in the State.

This being the case, his Lordship, she said, must see
the ill consequences which this bone of contention at
this time must produce even among the friends to
the Government; nor would the ill effects of it stop
there, for as the clergy had hitherto been kept quiet by
a promise of everything in their province remaining as
it was, so consequently, when that promise was broken,
it would set all the turbulent spirits and ill humours of
that body again afloat, and no one could foresee the
infinite difficulty which that might bring upon the Go*
vemment, or the confusion in which it might involve
the whole kingdom : but, besides these remote incon-
veniences that were to be apprehended, the immediate
havoc it would make in the approaching elections was
certain ; and^ in her opinion, if a Parliamentary decision
of the affair now under consideration could not be pre-
vented, the bringing of it to a final determination at
present would so split and tear the Whig party, and
would make some of them so unpopular among their
friends, and others so obnoxious to neutral persons, that
it would be very improbable, if not impossible, for a
Whig Parliament to be chosen.

Upon the whole, therefore, what she desired of his
Lordship was that he would use his interest with the
Dissenters to postpone this request to the Parliament
till such time as those wto were really their friends

150 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chaj. VU.

should dare to show themselves so, and not be intimi-
dated from espousing the interest of the Dissenters in
Parliament by an apprehension of losing their own
interest in the country.

The Bishop assured her Majesty that she was not
mistaken in the opinion she had of his readiness to
serve the King and her on all occasions; and that
whatever his little power could do to extricate them
out of any difficulties, at any time, should be done with
the greatest cheerfulness, diligence, and fidelity. But
as he had set out in the world with a declared attach-
ment both to ecclesiastical and civil liberty, and that he
had so often given his opinion in conversation and in
print with regard to the unreasonableness of these laws
in a social light, and the profaneness of them theologi-
cally considered, so it would be impossible for him ever
to contradict what he had so often asserted ; and there-
fore he must plainly and honestly tell her Majesty, that
whenever the repeal of them came to be proposed in
Parliament, he must always be for it, and forward as
much as in him lay a step which he thought but com-
mon justice from this Government to its long-oppressed
and long-faithiul friends. He further told her Majesty,
that as he had always declared himself so explicitly
and distinguished himself so zealously on this point,
it would be impossible, even though he were profli-
gate enough to desire it, for common prudence ever to
permit him to speak in any other strain on these mat-
ters. However, as a common friend both to the Whigs
and the Dissenters, if it should appear, upon feeling
people's pulse with regard to this thing, that the present
proposal of it in Parliament might prejudice the one

1730. HOADLEY'S DIFFICULTIES. 151

without advantaging the other, he should be very glad
to employ all the interest he had among the Dissenters
to divert the immediate trying of this point, and would
speak his opinion to the Dissenters as freely upon the
success they were now likely to have, as he had now
done to her Majesty of the success he thought they
ought to have.

This was the substance of her Majesty's first confer-
ence with the Bishop of Salisbury on this chapter; but,
soon after this conversation, there was a report spread,
both in town and country, that the Queen had sent for
the Bishop of Salisbury and convinced him that this
request of the Dissenters was so unreasonable, that he
had promised her not to support them in it Whoever
was sanguine enough to circulate this report, it was cer-
tainly as little consistent with good policy as with truth ;
since, if the Bishop of Salisbury had been inclined
(which he was not) to favour the Administration by
espousing their interest in preference to the Dissenters,
this report, instead of promoting such a design, would
have made the execution of it less practicable, as it
would have made the Dissenters look upon the Bishop
of Salisbury as less their friend, and consequently made
any advice he should give them of less weight

The Bishop was so reasonably angry and vexed at
what had been given out, that he went to Sir Robert
Walpole, and very fairly told him that those who had
endeavoured to propagate this opinion he believed
meant only hurt to himself but in effect it would do
the Administration no service. Since whatever use he
might have been of to the Government on this occa-
sion, it would certainly be necessary now for him to act

152 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Cki^p. Vn.

with the utmost caution, for fear of giving any colour
of truth by his own conduct to these suggestions that
had been made so little to his advantage. He further
told Sir Bobert Walpole, that he could not help own-
ing his first consideration would now be the care of his
own reputation and character ; he knew how nice the
situation was in which he stood at present, and how
hard a part he had to act both as to the Court and as
to the Dissenters, from the jealousy there would be on
both sides of his partiality ; but that, at all hazards, he
was determined to clear up that point of his having
received conviction from the Queen that the Dissenters*
now making this request to Parliament was unreason-
able ; and said he was sure Sir Bobert Walpole him-
self must approve his solicitude to disculpate himself of
such an imputation, since in common sense and plain
language such suggestions could bear no other con-
struction than that he had been tampered with at Court
till he had submitted to temporize with its authority,
at the expense both of his opinion and his integrity.
Sir Bobert Walpole, after making the Bishop a great
many professions of the cordiality of his friendship
towards him, and telling him with what gratitude he
thought of all the obligations he had formerly had both
to his affection and his capacity, assured him that as
much as the Administration wanted his assistance in
this important affair, if he thought it could prejudice
his own character to give it them, he would be the last
man in England to ask or desire it ; that as to this
report of his Lordship's having been convinced by the
Queen of the Dissenters' plea being unreasonable, he
had never heard it, and thought, if there was any such

1730. WALPOLE'S ARGUMENTS. 163

report, it was below his Lordship to regard it; for
though there always would be some idle people on all
occasions ready to make stories, and some few weak
and credulous enough to believe them, yet his Lord-
ship's sentiments were too well known, and his charac-
ter too well established, for any sensible body ever to
doubt of the one or receive any ill impressions of the
other. That as to the main question, whether this
thing ought to be done for the Dissenters or not, he was
#ure the Bishop did not want to know his thoughts
upon it ; though he looked on the application at this
time as unseasonable, yet he was far from thinking
the request itself abstractedly considered, unreason-
able. But« notwithstanding this, let his private
opinion be what it would, people in his station, he said,
must now and then act a little with regard to what
others tiiought right, as well as what they thought right
diemselves; and that he had sounded many of the
firmest friends to the Government upon this point, and
found so many against it in opinion, as thinking it bore
the appearance of breaking in on the Established
Church, and so many more against it for phidential
and personal reasons with regard to their interest in
the country, that he was sure, if the point was now to
be tried, it could not be carried ; and that for this rea-
son, how grateful soever the Court might be to the
Dissenters for the services they had done this Govern-
ment, and how well so ever it might wish them, yet the
Administration must run such risks, and incur so much
ill will, if at this juncture it appeared for them, that no
prudent man could advise the King to take the unpo-
pular part of espousing them, especially with so little

154 LOED HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. YII.

prospect of success. As to himself in private and in
confidence, he would not scruple to own to the Bishop
that his heart was with them ; but in this country, which
was in reality a popular Government that only bore the
name of monarchy, and especially in this age where
clamour and faction were so prevalent over reason and
justice, he said, a minister sometimes must swim with
the tide against his inclination, and iliat the current was
too strong at present against this proposal of the Dis-
senters for any judicious minister to think of stemming
it He further added, that if he were wholly uncon-
cerned as a minister, and only considered this thing as
a friend to the Dissenters, he should certainly rather
advise them to try it at tiie beginning of a new Parlia-
ment than at the end of an old one, as people would
be less afraid of the ferment in the country seven years
before elections were again to come on, than one ; and
consequently those who were friends to the Dissenters
would have the principal check to their showing them-
selves such, removed to so great a distance that it
would be almost the same thing as being entirely taken
away.

The Bishop asked Sir Bobert if, in making use of
this argument to the Dissenters, he might give them
hopes of finding more favour from the Court in case
they would adjourn their pretensions till the opening of
a new Parliament ; but Sir Bobert avoided hampering
himself by any promise of that kind by saying, that as
such a promise could never be kept a secret, so its
being known to be given for the fiiture would have just
the same ill effects as the performance of it in present ;
and, for that reason, whatever he thought might be

1730. LORD BARRINGTON. 165

done, he would not^ nor dare not, say it should be
done.

The Bishop plainly saw through this artifice, and at
the same time perceived that his encouraging the Dis-
senters to proceed further in this afiair at present would
only ruin his own little remnant of interest at Court,
without availing them, and therefore resolved plainly
to represent to them what they had to expect, and
advise them not to push a point which might force
many who were thought their friends to desert them,
and hurt many who would stand by them, and give
their enemies advantage without a possibility of pro-
curing any benefit to themselves. Sir Robert Walpole
in this interview reproved the Bishop often fi>r acting
with Lord Barrington, an Irish dissenting peer, who
set himself at the head of the Presbyterians on this
occasion, and who. Sir Robert told the Bishop, had
neither parts to serve the cause nor reputation to give
it weight : and, in truth. Lord Barrington*8 character
was not the brightest in understandings nor the most
unsullied in integrity.' The Bishop had several more
conferences on this subject both with the Queen and
Sir Robert Walpole, but as they were all to the same
effect with those I have related, I shall not recapitulate
them.

The Dissenters were so sanguine all over England
in diis project, that in every county and great town in
the kingdom they had meetings to consult upon it and
methodise the execution of it, and deputations were

3 He had been expelled the House of Commons in 1728 for '* an infa-
mous fraudulent project " called the Harburgh lottery. — lYndal; and Wal-
poliawi, { 68.

156 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VII.

sent from every quarter to communicate their resolu-
tions to the body of the Dissenters in London, on
whom they relied for the solicitation and management
of the whole.

This enabled Sir Bobert Walpole to defeat the pro-
ject entirely ; for out of the body of the London Dis-
senters a committee was to be chosen, to treat and
confer with the ministers ; and as the honest gentlemen
who composed that committee were all monied men of
the city and scriveners, who were absolutely dependent
on Sir Bobert, and chosen by his contrivance, they
spoke only as he prompted, and acted only as he
guided.

However, to save appearances, everything was to be
carried on with the utmost seeming formality; this
packed committee was to meet the Lord Chancellor
[King], Mr. Onslow, the Speaker of the House of
Commons, the Lord President of the Council [Wil-
mington], the two Secretaries of State [Duke of New-
castle and Lord Harrington], and Sir Bobert Walpole,
in order to ask and learn from these great men what
the Presbyterians, in case they brought their petition
now into Parliament, had to hope from the Court, die
House of Lords, and the House of Commons.

Sir Bobert Walpole at this meeting began with a
dissertation on the subject on which they were con-
vened, and repeated most of the things he had before
said to the Bishop of Salisbury. The Speaker avoided
giving his opinion on the thing itself, but was very
strong and explicit on the inexpediency of bringing it
now before the Parliament, and the little probability,
if it was brought there, of its success. My Lord Presi-

1730. THE DESIGN QUASHED. I57

dent looked wise, was dull, took sxmS, and said nothing.
Lord Harrington took the same silent, passive part.
The Lord Chancellor and the Duke of Newcastle had
done better had they followed that example too ; but
both spoke very plentifiilly, and were both equally un-
intelligible, the one from having lost his understanding,^ f
and the other from never having had any. '

The result of this conference was reported by the
committee to a general assembly of all the Dissenters
in London, convened for that purpose ; and upon that
report this assembly came to the following resolu-
tions : —

First, That if a petition was to be now preferred to Parlia-
ment in their fayour, that there was no prospect of success.

Secondly, That the present was consequently an improper
time for any application to Parliament of that kind.

And, Thirdly, It was resolyed to communicate the negotia-
tions of the committee, and the resolutions of this assembly
thereupon, to all the Dissenters in England.

In this manner this storm that threatened the Admi-
nistration from the Presbyterian party blew over. Sir
Robert Walpole conducted the whole afiair on his part
with great skill, temper, and dexterity : but the Presby-
terians, as well as many who were unconcerned, saw
plainly th* the Dissenters' cause was betrayed, and
their interests sold, by their factors in London. The
Bishop of Salisbury had the misfortune, though he
acted with the greatest caution and the strictest can-
dour both towards the Court and towards the Dissent-

4 Lord Chancellor King had been reputed an able lawyer; but about this
time began to show strong symptoms of a (probably constitutional) failure of
intellect, which soon incapaciUted him for the woolsack.

/

158 LORD HERVBY*S MEMOIRS. Chap. VIL

erSy to please neither; the latter thought he had pressed
their cause too little, and the other that he had sup-
ported it too much. So that it happened to him on
this occasion, as it happens to most people of honesty
in such delicate situations, that the more pains they
take not to be in the wrong, the less either side are
willing to acknowledge them to be in the right; no-
body, who desires partiality, being capable of owning
they received justice, though it be ever so strictly per-
formed. -->

1733. THB EXCISE SCHEME. 159

CHAPTER VIII.

The Excise Scheme — Alarm of the Country — Walpole's reflolution — Ses-
Bion of Parliament — ^The Army voted — Cabal of the Lords — Lord Stair's
Bemonstimnee with the Queen — Queen's Reply — Repeated to Lord
Hervey — General clamours agunst the Exdse — Popular delusion.

But this flame was no sooner extinguished in the
nation^ than another was kindled, and one that was
much more epidemical, and raged with much greater
fury. Faction was never more busy on any occasion ;
terrors were never more industriously scattered, and
clamour never more universally raised.

That which gave rise to these commotions was a
project of Sir Robert Walpole's to ease the land-tax
of one shilling in the pound, by turning the duty on
tobacco and wine, then payable on importation, into
inland duties ; that is, changing the Customs on those
two commodities into Excises ; by which scheme, joined

1 It b remarkable that Coxe (iii. 48) passes, m two lines, the period
from May, 1730, to January, 1733, as wholly unmarked by any public event,
and dedicates the interval to a biography of Pulteney, and some account of
his controversy and duel with Lord Hervey. Lord Hervey's Memoirs make
exactly the same leap, without making a similar compensation — though
there appears no hiatus in the manuscript; and it seems by the words
which connect the '* Dissenters* claims^* with the '* Excise scheme**
that his Lordship intentionally skips over two and a half of the most
interesting years of his life. These years include his quarrel with
Frederick, Prince of Wales ; the publication of the pamphlet which Pulte-
ney resented as Lord Hervey's in a virulent reply, and their consequent
duel ; and Pope's libel on him as Sporas. I am at a loss to account for
Coxe's silence as to the events of these two years, and more so for Lord
Hervey's ; but most of all that they should happen to be simultaneous.

160 LOED HERVEY'S BiEMOIRS. Chai*. Yin.

to the continuation of the salt-duty, he proposed to im-
prove the public revenue 500,000/. per annum, in order
to supply the abatement of one shilling in the pound
on land, which raises about that sum.

The landed men had long complained that they had
ever since the Revolution borne the heat and burden
of the day for the support of the Revolution Govern-
ment ; and as the great pressure of the last war haid
chiefly lain on them (the land having for many years
been taxed to four shillings in the pound), they now
began to say, that since the public tranquillity both at
home and abroad was firmly and universally esta-
blished, if ease was not at this time thought of for them,
it was a declaration from the Government that they
were never to expect any; and that two shillings in the
pound on land was the least that they or their posterity,
in the most profound peace and fullest tranquillity,
were ever to hope to pay.

This having been the cry of the country gentlemen
and landowners for some time. Sir Robert Walpole
thought he could not do a more popular thing than to
form a scheme by which the land-tax should be reduced
to one shilling in the pound, and yet no new tax be
substituted in the lieu thereof no new duty laid on any
commodity whatsoever, and the public revenue improved
500,000/. per annum, merely by this alteration in the
method of management

The salt-duty, which had been revived the year before
[ 1732], could raise only in three years what one shil-
ling in the pound on land raised in one year ; conse-
quently, as that tax was an equivalent only to one-third
of a shilling on land, if the remission of that shilling on

1733. TOE EXCISE SCHEME. 161

land was fiirtiber and annually continued, some other
fund must be found to supply the other two-thirds.

This of Excising tobacco and wine was the equivalent
projected by Sir Bobert Walpole, but this scheme, in-
stead of procuring him the popularity he thought it
would, caused more clamour and made him even, whilst
the project was only talked of and in embryo, more vili-
fied and abused by the universal outcries of the people,
than any one act of his whole administration.

The art, vigilance, and industry of his enemies had
so contrived to represent this scheme to the people, and
had so generally in every county and great town
throughout all England prejudiced their minds against
it; they had shown it in so formidable a shape and
painted it in such hideous colours, that everybody talked
of the scheme as a general Excise ; they believed that
food and raiment, and all the necessaries of life, were to
be taxed ; that armies of Excise officers were to come
into any house and at any time they pleased ; that our
liberties were at an end, trade going to be ruined,
Magna Charta overturned, all property destroyed, the
Crown made absolute, and Parliaments themselves no
longer necessary to be called.

This was the epidemic madness of the nation on this
occasion ; whilst most of the boroughs in England, and
the city of London itself, sent formal instructions by way
of memorials to their Representatives, absolutely to op-
pose all new Excises and all extension of Excise laws, if
proposed in Parliament, though introduced or modelled
in any manner whatsoever.

It is easy to imagine that this reception of a scheme
by which Sir Bobert Walpole proposed to ingratiate

VOL. L M

162 LOHB HERYET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VIIL

himself so much with the people, must give him great
disquiet. Some of his friends, whose timidity passed
afterwards for judgment, advised him to relinquish it,
and said, though it was in itself so beneficial a scheme
to the public, yet since the public did not see it in that
light, that the best part he could take was to lay it aside.

Sir Robert Walpole thought, since he was so far em-
barked, that there was no listening to such adyice with-
out quitting the King s service, for as it was once known
that he designed to execute this scheme, had he given
it up, everything that had been said of its tendency
would have been taken for granted ; and the same men
who had prepossessed the minds of the people, so far as
to have these things credited, would very naturally and
easily have persuaded them that their rescue from ruin,
and the stop that had been put to this impending blow,
were entirely owing to their patriotism ; that it was the
stand they had made had prevented the universal de-
struction that had been threatened to the liberties and
fortunes of the people.

Sir Robert Walpole, therefore (who, if he could have
foreseen the difficulties in which this scheme involved
him, would certainly never have embarked in it at all),^
in this disagreeable dilemma chose what he thought the
least dangerous path, and resolved, since he had under-
taken it, to try to carry it through. His manner of
reasoning was, that if he had given way to popular
clamour on this occasion, it would be raised, right or
wrong, on every future occasion to thwart and check
any measure that could be taken by the Government
whilst he should have the direction of affairs, and that
the consequence of that must be, his resignation of

1733. CABAL OF THE LORDS. 163

his employment or his dismissal from the King's
service*

About the middle of January the Parliament met as
usual : the King in his speech set forth the happy situa-
tion of affairs both at home and abroad, asked nothing
but the ordinary supplies for the current service of the
year, and concluded as usual with a universal recom-
mendation of temper and unanimity to the Commons in
all their debates, desiring them to avoid all heat and
animosities, and praying them not to be diverted by any
specious pretences whatsoever from raising the supplies
in the easiest manner to his people.

The two great affairs of this Session were the army
and these Excises ; and the reception these two points
met with in the world plainly shows on what capricious
and unreasonable foundations popular clamour is gene-
rally raised ; for considering our constitution and the
present situation of our affairs both at home and abroad,
there was as little to be ui^ed in defence of the measure
of keeping up the same number of troops as there was
in fair aiding against the Excise scheme ; yet on the
chapter of Excise the whole nation was put into aflame,
whilst the army was scarcely mentioned in the country,
and passed through the House little more disputed
than the malt-tax, or any other of the ordinary annual
supplies.

It was hoped by Sir Robert Walpole's enemies, more
than feared by his friends, that the defection among the
Lords on this point of the Excise would be very consi-
derable, and that several who had long wished him ill in
secret, though in public they had abetted all his mea-
sures, would take this opportunity to strike at him.

M 2

164 LORD HBRVFT'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VIII.

Of this number were reckoned the Duke of Argyle, the
Duke of Montrose, Earl of Stair, Earl of Marchmont,
Duke of Bolton, Lord Chesterfield, Lord Clinton, and
Lord Cobham.* There were frequent meetings, intrigues,
consultations, and cabals among these Lords, in what
manner they should show their opposition, and what
previous steps were necessary to be taken to make
it most effectual.

Among many other things it was resolved that some
one of them should ask an audience of the Queen in
order to try how far they could work either on her rea-
son or her fear, by telling her in the strongest terms the
unfitness and unpopularity of the point pushed by her
favourite, by setting forth the hazards she ran in main-
taining him in it, and endeavouring to persuade her of
the impossibility there was, in this universal discontent,
that he should be able to carry it through.

Lord Stair was pitched upon to be the ambassador
from the faction to her Majesty on this occasion. A
man in years and of experience, one of the sixteen
Scotch peers, who had been ambassador in France in
the ticklish times of the Duke of Orleans' regency, and
had acted there with skill and credit to himself and to
the honour and benefit of his country.*

He was reckoned a man of honour and integrity, and
though he had much more of the profiision of money in
his conduct than is common to his countrymen, yet the
desire of getting it was as predominant in his com-

s These Lords were all in civil or military removeable offices.

> John, second Earl of Stair, a man of considerable reputation both as a
soldier and a statesman. Bom in 1673 ; he died in 1747. He served as a
general officer in Marlborough's latter campaigns ; and after an interval of
thirty years commanded the allied army at Dettmgen in 1743.

1733. LORD STAIR'S REMONSTRANCE. 165

position as in the most thrifty Scotchman of them all.
He had been ill with Sir Eobert Walpole some years
ago, but upon the Duke of Queensberry's resigning his
employment of Vice-Admiral of Scotland, his Lord-
ship, forgetting all former wrongs and resentment, wrote
a most submissive letter to Sir Robert, full of the strongest
professions of future friendship and good behaviour, and
desired to succeed the Duke of Queensberry. He did
so; but notwithstanding this boon being granted, he
soon recurred to grumbling, complaining, and every
other mark of his former discontent, except retiring to
Scotland. His Lordship was of a very warm, prompt
temper, and when he was angry did not hesitate to
express his being so in very strong and irritating terms.
In the audience he asked of the Queen, he opened
his embassy by telling her, that he had long thought
himself neglected and ill used by those who were at the
head of the Administration, but he assured her Majesty
it was not that which now prompted him to give her
this trouble ; for, notwithstanding that ill usage, whilst
the King's measures and the points proposed by his
ministers in Parliament had been such as were not de-
trimental to the nation, her Majesty was very sensible
that he had never from pique or ill humour given any
opposition or aimed at obstructing whatever had been
thought proper to be done. He hoped, he said, that
her Majesty would give herself the trouble one moment
to reflect on his past conduct, and was sure she could
not then help being so just to him as to own that this was
strictly true; and since it was so, he hoped her Majesty
would likewise have candour enough to believe, that the
strong declarations he had made against the great point

166 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VHI.

of Excise now in debate, had been entirely owing to a
thorough conviction that if the personal enemies of Sir
Bobert Walpole and the most determined Jacobites in
the kingdom had been to suggest a measure that would
be the surest to serve their cause, to ruin Sir Robert
Walpole, and endanger even the security of her family
in this kingdom, they could not have pitched on a scheme
more conducive to these ends. The scheme, he told
her, was injudiciously at first concerted and hastily un-
dertaken ; that it was known to have been so now even
by Sir Robert himself, and was only at present pushed
by him in obstinacy, because he would not own himself
guilty of an error, which must end in his disgrace or the
total ruin of the nation. But as Sir Robert was reduced
by his rashness, by a wantonness in power, or by a want
of judgment to this fatal option ; self-preservation, ob-
stinacy, and pride had made him choose even to risk
his master's Grown by alienating the affections of his
subjects and forcing a scheme upon them contrary to
their universal remonstrances, rather than submit to
own that he had been deceived, and in consequence of
that deception had endeavoured to deceive her Majesty
and the King. "But, Madam, though your Majesty
knows nothing of this man but what he tells you him-
self, or what his creatures and flatterers, prompted by
himself, tell you of him, yet give me leave to assure
your Majesty that in no age, in no reign, in no country
was ever any minister so universally odious as the man
you support. -He is hated by the army, because he is
known to support them against his will, and hated by
the country for supporting them at all ; he is hated by
the clergy, because they know the support they receive

1733. LORD STAIR'S REMONSTRANCE, 167

from him is policy, contrary to his principles of Whig-
gism, and a support he makes them earn at a dear rate ;
he is hated by the city of London, because he never did
anything for the trading part of it, nor aimed at any
interest of theirs but a corrupt influence over the direc-
tors and governors of the great monied companies ; he is
hated by all the Scotch to a man, because he is known to
have combated every mark of favour the King has been
so good to confer on any of that nation ; and he is little
better beloved by many Englishmen, even of those who
vote with him and serve under him. (jSis power being
thus universally dreaded, and his measures being thus
universally disliked, and your Majesty being thought
his protectress ; give me leave to say, Madam, the odium
incurred by his oppressions and injustice is not entirely
confined to his own personj and as everybody. Madam,
does imagine that he cannot be so blind, so deaf, and so
insensible as not to see, hear, and know himself obnoxi-
ous to the people of all ranks and denominations in the
kingdom — so it is thought the only resource he now has
is to throw power into the hands of the Crown, where
he must take reiuge, and from whence alone he can
hope for protection. People are confirmed in this
opinion by this enslaving scheme of Excises, which they
neither do nor can think upon in any other light And
if your Majesty thinks the English so degenerated, and
the minds of the people so enslaved, as to receive chains
without struggling against those who endeavour to
fasten them ; if you are willing to risk the power the
law has given to the Crown, in order to add an illegal
authority inconsistent with the fimdamental principles
of this Government ; if you wish to do it and think it

168 I^RI> HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. Vin.

can be done, you are in the right to persevere in the
maintenance of this project and projector, and in con-
tradiction to the manifest bent of the nation, in con-
tempt of the universal clamour of the kingdom, in de-
fiance of an irritated people, and in a thorough disregard
to the native of the Constitution and the laws of a fi*ee
country. {^That he absolutely governs your Majesty
nobody doubts, and very few scruple to say ; they own
you have the appearance of power, and say you are con-
tented with the appearance, whilst all the reality of power
is his, derived from the King, conveyed through you,
and vested in him.^ The King is looked upon as the
engine of his minister's ambition, and your interest and
influence over him as the secret springs by which this
minister gives motion to all his master's actions. No
greater proof can be given of the infinite sway this man
has usurped over you. Madam, than in the very in-
stance I have given of his first personal injury to me,
which is the preference he has given Lord Isla to me
on every occasion, both here and in Scotland : for what
cannot that man persuade you to, who can make you^
Madam, love a Campbell ? The only two men in this '
country who ever vainly hoped or dared to attempt to
set a mistress's* power up in opposition to yours were
Lord Isla and his brother the Duke of Argyle ; yet
one of the men who strove to dislodge you by this me-
thod from the King's bosom, is the man your favourite
has thought fit to place the nearest to his ; a man, too,
who is as little useful in his public character as amiable
in his private one ; one as mean in his conduct as in

^ Mrs. Howard. See the grounds for this statement, in the Rend"
fuacences and the Suffolk Carretpandencef i. 40, &c.

1733. LOED stair's REMONSTRANCE. 169

his aspect, and who acts no more like a man of quality
than he looks like one ; a man of as little weight as
principle, and no more fit to he trusted with any com-
mission that requires ability and judgment than with
one that requires honesty and fidelity."

Here the Queen interrupted the thread of Lord Stair's
invectives, and told him, in the first place, with regard
to Lord Isla and himself that she neither was nor de-
sired to be informed of the causes of the misunderstand-
ings between them ; that she should be a very incom-
petent judge of the particulars if they were before her,
and desired not to be made acquainted with them, be-
cause she should be as unwilling to speak her opinion if
she had been able to form one, as she was now to enter
into the dispute without having any opinion about it at
all ; that it was not her business to canvass the private
characters and quarrels of those the King thought fit to
employ, and, therefore, whenever his Lordship spoke of
Lord Isla to her, she desired he would remember he was
speaking of the King's servant and to the King's wife.

This rebuke silenced Lord Stair on Lord Isla's chap-
ter, and when he resumed his speech, he told her Ma-
jesty, that his reason for saying what he had done, was
not so much firom his own personal resentment to Lord
Isla, as to let her Majesty know what sort of men these
were, and how the world thought of tliem, who had the
happiness of being most distinguished by the honest and
judicious minister she maintained ; and though he was
not allowed to tell the faults of those this minister es-
poused, he hoped at least he might be at liberty to speak
the merit of those he endeavoured to depress ; and if he
had that liberty, the list would consist of the names of

170 LORD HERYET'8 MEMOIRS. Chap. Yin.

every man of worth, honour, and probity in her Court
" Your Majesty little thinks of the defection there will be
among the nobility on this point I know it to be such
(for it is not conjecture) as will startle not only your
minister when it breaks out, but even his master and
yourself. I know it will be such as will make it impos-
sible for this Bill to pass the Lords, though power and
corruption may force it through the Commons. This
being the case, I would oppose it even in policy, were
my conscience quite out of the question ; but if policy
were as strong on the other side, yet, Madam^ I think
it so wicked, so dishonest, so slavish a scheme, that my
conscience would no more permit me to vote for it than
his ought to have permitted him to project it*'

When Lord Stair talked of his conscience with such
solemnity, the Queen (the whole conversation being in
French) cried out — " Ah^ my Lord I ne me parkz point
de conscience ; vous mefaites ^txinouir.** Lord Stair was
extremely shocked and nettled at this exclamation, and
said he hoped no action of his had ever betrayed any
want either of conscience or honour^ and that his whole
life had been guided by the strictest laws of both : and
since it had been so, he assured her Majesty, he had no
notion that the profligacy of mankind could be such, as
to make it possible for her favourite to find a majority
of the House of Commons who, with repeated obstinate
injustice and a shameless violation of their trust, would
persevere in passing a Bill so evidently opposite to the
inclinations of their constituents, so destructive of their
interests and their liberties, and so contradictory to
their express instructions and commands.

"Surely, my Lord," replied the Queen, "you think

1733. THE QUEEN'S BEPLY. 171

you are either talking to a child or to one that doats ;
for supposing this Bill to be everything which you have
described it to be, do you imagine I should be weak
enough to believe that you would oppose it for the rea-
sons you have given ? or that it would be natural for
you to think that these ailments you have mentioned
would weigh with anybody ? Do you, my Lord, pre-
tend to talk of the opinion of electors having any influ-
ence on the elected ? You have made so very free with
me personally in this conference, my Lord, that I hope
you will think I am entitled to speak my mind with
very little reserve to you ; and believe me, my Lord, I
am no more to be imposed upon by your professions
than I am to be terrified by your threats. I must there-
fore once more ask you, my Lord, how you can have the
assurance to talk to me of your thinking the sense of
constituents, their interest, or their instructions any
measure or rule for the conduct of their representatives
in Parliament; or if you believe I am so ignorant or so
forgetful of all past proceedings in Parliament, as not
to know that in the only occasion where these consi-
derations should have biassed you, you set them all at
nought ? Remember the Peerage Bill, my Lord. Who
then betrayed the interest of their constituents ? Who
gave up the birthright of their constituents ? Who de-
prived their constituents of all chance of ever taking
their turn with those whom they then sent to Parlia-
ment? The English Lords in passing that Bill were
only guilty of tyranny, but every Scotch Lord was
guilty of the last treachery; and whether you were one
of the sixteen traitors, your own memory, I believe, will
serve to tell you without the assistance of mine. To

172 LORD HERVErS MEMOIRS. Chap. VIII.

talk, therefore, in the patriot strain you have done to
me on this occasion, can move me, my Lord, to nothing
but laughter. Where you get your lesson, I do not
want to know : your system of politics you collect from
the * Craftsman;' your sentiments, or rather your pro-
fessions, from my Lord Bolingbroke and my Lord
Carteret— mhom you may tell, if you think fit, that I
have long movm to he two as worthless men of parts as
any in this country^ and whom I have not only been
often told are two of the greatest liars and knaves in any
country y hut whom my own observation and experience
have found so. ylf you think, you may also, by way of
supplement, let Lord Carteret know that I am not yet
reduced to wanting his protection, though I hear he
bragged of having had the generosity to bestow it upon
me when the affair of the Charitable Corporation was
under prosecution in the House of Lords, and that he
saved me from being exposed there. For the rest, my
good Lord, as an old acquaintance, the best advice I
can give you, if you are a friend to the King, is to de-
tach yourself from his enemies ; if you are a friend
to truth, to take your intelligence for the future from
those who deal in it; if you are a friend to honesty, not
to herd with those who disclaim it ; and, if you are a
friend to our family, never to cabal with those who look
on ours and the Jacobites' cause as things indifferent in
themselves, and to be espoused or combated in no
other view, and on no other motive, than as this or that
may least or most conduce to thwarting or gratifying
their own private avarice and ambition."

Lord Stair said he perceived her Majesty was deter-
mined ; but that she would see her error, and he hoped

1733. THE QUEEN*S REPLY. 173

before it was too late. He worked himself up again
into a violent passion, and took his leave in saying
Madame^ vous Stes irompie^ et le Eoi est trahi.

The Queen, one evening when Lord Hervey came
to give her an account of some debate in the House of
Lords or Commons (which he did constantly through
the whole Session), told him every circumstance of this
conversation in the manner it is here related (except-
ing that of Lord Isla and the Duke of Argyle having
set up the power of a mistress in opposition to hers,
which she did not mention ; that was a particular which
Lord Hervey had from Sir Robert Walpole) : and this
account agreeing in every essential part with that Sir
Robert Walpole gave Lord Hervey of the rest of the
conversation, as well as with the report Lord Stair
made of it to his friends, I believe there can be no
doubt but that the greatest and most material part of
what I have related concerning this extraordinary con-
ference is strictly and literally true. At the same time
that the Queen let Lord Hervey into this anecdote, she
told him Lord Stair had desired that the particulars of
this conference might be kept secret, which she pro-
mised to do on her part as long as he submitted to do
so on his ; but finding, by private intelligence, joined
to a public incident, that Lord Stair had bragged to
Lord Carteret, as well as many others, of the strong
things he had said to her, and that he had given out he
had sta^ered her, she told Lord Hervey she looked
upon herself as freed from that promise of secrecy —
et fai pris d'abord la premihre occasion (TSffosiUer
tout.

The public incident which convinced her Majesty that

174 I^M> HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VIU.

Lord Stair had acquainted Lord Carteret with what
had passed was this: — ia debate in the House of Lords
on the affair of the troops for this year, some few days
after this interview, Lord Carteret, by a little declama-
tory digression, took occasion to inveigh against Excises
and evil ministers, and found means this way to inter-
weave in his speech an account that, when France
was ruled and oppressed by Cardinal Mazarin sup-
ported by the Queen Mother (then R^ent), in oppo-
sition to the clamour of the people and inclination of
the whole kingdom, that the greatest general of his time^
and a man of the first consideration at the Courts asked
an audience of the Queeuy and in that interview told
her, " Madarn^ you maintain a man at the helm that
should he rormng in your galleys J*

When Lord Hervey told the Queen of this, she asked
if there was nobody of the Court side in the House
who was well read enough in the history of those times
to tell Lord Carteret, from the Memoirs of the Cardinal
de Betas, that the Prince of Cond6 (who was the general
Lord Carteret meant) never opposed the measures of
Cardinal Mazarin till the Cardinal found his ambition
so insatiable that it was impossible to content him, and
that the audience that Prince asked of the Queen was
in order to impose upon her in the same manner he
had endeavoured to impose on all France, which was
by trying to persuade everybody that the effects of his
private resentment were only the consequences of his
zeal for the King and the public ?

Lord Hervey said he was sorry none of her servants
were so capable of answering Lord Carteret on this
part of French history as he found her Majesty would

1733. CLAMOUR AGAINST THE EXCISE, ns

have been ; and wished she had been present, to have
given any of them this hint, and to have said, like
Agrippina, —

" Deni^re one voile, inyisible ct pr^sente,

Je fu8 de ce gnnd corps Tfime toute puissante." ^

The Queen laughed, did not dislike the compliment,
and said that she did not doubt but that he was as well
versed in De Retz as Bacine, and that if he had been
there, she should not have been wanted : but, said she,
as you often tell me of my pride, I will now confess
to you an instance of it, and to carry on the parallel
you have drawn between me and Agrippina, will own
to you that I very often feel myself, in conference avec
ces impertinens —

<< FiUe, femme, et m^re de tos maltres."

Lord Hervey said he was very glad her pride had so
great a pleasure in reflecting on that which all her
subjects had so great an advantage in her being.

Lord Stair boasted much to all his party, who circu-
lated the history, of the bold truths he told the Queen,
and the strong effect they seemed to have upon her.
At the same time many pamphlets were written and
dispersed in the country, setting forth the dangerous
consequences of extending the Excise Laws, and in-
creasing the number of Excise-officers; showing the
infringement of the one upon liberty, and the influence
the other must necessarily give the Crown in elections.
And so universally were these terrors scattered through
the nation, and so artfiiUy were they instilled into the
minds of the people, that this project, which in reality

^ Britannicus, a. i. s. 1.

176 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. VUL

was nothing more than a mutation of two taxes from
Customs to Excises, with an addition of only one hun-
dred and twenty-six officers in all England for the col-
lection of it, was so represented to the whole country,
and so understood by the multitude, that there was
hardly a town in England, great or small, where nine
parts in ten of the inhabitants did not believe that this
project was to establish a general Excise, and that every-
thing they eat or wore was to be taxed ; that a colony
of Excise-officers was to be settled in every village in
the kingdom, and that they were to have a power to
enter all houses at all hours; that every place and
every person was to be liable to their search ; and that
such immense sums of money were to be raised by this
project, that the Crown would no longer be under the
necessity of calling Parliaments for annual grants to
support the Government, but be able to provide for
itself for the most part; and whenever it wanted
any extraordinary supplies, that tiie Excise-officers, by
their power, would be able at any time to choose just
such a Parliament as the Crown should nominate and
direct.

The effect these suggestions, inculcated and believed,
must have on the minds of a people jealous of their
liberties, susceptible of impressions, and prone to
clamour, is easy to conceive. Every alarm sounded
from the faction in London came reverberated by a
thousand echoes from every part of the country ; the
whole nation was in a flame, and fresh iuel was con-
stantly supplied by those who first kindled it, to keep
it blazing.

Sir Robert Walpole delayed as long as he could

1738. . POPULAR DELUSION. 177

bringing the proposal into Parliament, in hopes the
clamour might subside, and the members consequently
be less intimidated by the remonstrances of their con-
stituents ; pamphlets were written, too, during this
delay, on the side of Government, and sent all over
England by the Administration, to show the people they
had been imposed upon, blown up by false insinuations,
and that the project was nothing more than a scheme
to correct frauds committed in these two branches of
the revenue, tobacco and wine, by which means it was
proposed to raise the revenue enough to continue the
reduction of the land-tax at one shilling in the pound
without imposing any new tax on the subject and with-
out increasing any tax already laid; but merely by
this alteration in the method of collecting two duties
already granted, which the consumer and fair trader
now paid, and of which the public was defrauded by
the evaders of the laws and the illicit dealers in these
commodities.

But all this reasoning was to no purpose ; the people
would neither hear arguments, examine facts, nor believe
demonstration ; and the universal cry of the kingdom
was, No slavery — no Excise — no wooden shoes I

I cannot help here remarking, that upon all the
Excise duties laid by Parliament since the Restoration
(and some there have been in every reign from that
time to this), there never was the least clamour raised
in the country, or any opposition to them in Parlia-
ment, on any other foot than a dispute whether they
would answer the charge of collection by their produce.
Those, therefore, who accuse Sir Robert Walpole of
want of penetration in not foreseeing the diflSculties

VOL. I. N

r

178 LORD HERVEyS MEMOIRS. Chap. Yin.

into which this scheme would lead him, are of that class
(and a numerous one it is) who imagine that every
event is so little casual, that whatever is, could not have
been otherwise ; and of course, with equal folly, impute
all success to prudence, and all disappointments to indis-
cretion. But it is not to such fools that I write, though,
to my sorrow, it is with such I daily converse— crea-
tures who, though they laugh at magic, have a faith in
a sort of terrestrial astrology (if I may be allowed the
expression), and fancy every incident resulting really
from accident the necessary consequence of a chain of
causes, which every able political astrologer might fore-
see: and though these refining commentators have a
thousand times found themselves in situations both of
prosperity and distress, without being able to account
how they came there, yet experience teaches them in
vain the fallacy of their opinion, and they still continue
to impute the success of the prosperous to contrivance,
and the miscarriage of the imfortunate to imprudence.

1733. MOBS AT WB8IMINSTBB. 179

CHAPTER IX.

Mobs at Westminstei^-The ExcUe unpopular in the House— Majorities
decrease— Anxiety of the King — His views of Government — Influenced
by the Queen — Lord Scarborough's remonstrance — Walpole hesitates
and offers to retire— Spirit of the King and Queen— Opposition at
Court — ^Her notions of official discipline — ^The Excise Scheme abandoned
— ^Riots — CompUuned of, in Parliament, and turned to the advantage
of the Minister.

At last the day came [ Wednesday^ 14th of March]
when this Excise proposition was to be canvassed in
Parliament; it was reported, the night before, that
thousands of people would come down next day to the
door of the House of Commons, to petition the Mem-
bers, as they passed, to reject it : and menaces were
whispered about to terrify all who should appear for it

To prevent the mischief that might be apprehended
from such multitudes gathering together and falling
into riot and tumult, proper directions were given to
the justices of the peace, constables, and civil magis-
trates, to attend and keep the peace ; and secret orders
were likewise given both to the horse and foot Guards
to be in readiness to march, in case of exigence and
extremity, at a moment's warning.

The mob came down to Westminster, but not in so
numerous a body as was expected, and in much better
order : however, there were enough so to throng and
crowd the lobby and Court of Eequests, that it was with
the utmost difficulty that the Members of the House
could pass in and out.

n2

180 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IX.

After a long debate, which lasted till one o'clock in
the morning, the question was carried in a committee of
the whole House, for the Excise scheme, by a majority
of 61 ; the numbers were 204 and 265.

Sir Robert Walpole, by the advice of all his fiiends,
to avoid the insults that some of this rabble might have
offered him, went out of the House the back way, through
the Speaker's chamber, to Lord Halifax's,* where he
supped, from whence he came away privately, after the
multitude was dispersed and all quiet.

This multitude was kept in so good order, that, ex-
cepting now and then a hiss upon some of the Court
party when they came out, a little pointing and a loud
whisper of That *s one of them ! there was very little
indecency or disorder committed. One there was among
these people ruder than the rest, whom General Wade
took by the collar, but, upon his submission and
entreaty, the General let him go again, telling him he
was a scoundrel and below his further notice.

Lord Hervey went, as soon as the House was up, to
give the King an account of all that had passed within
doors and without ; the King was so anxious and so
impatient, that he had made Lord Hervey write to him
from the House at five o'clock to tell him what face
matters wore.

As soon as Lord Hervey came to St James's the
King carried him into the Queen's bed-chamber, and
there kept him without dinner till near three in the
morning, asking him ten thousand questions, relating

1 Lord Halifax, as Auditor of the Exchequer, had an official residence
adjoining the House of Commons— the same, I believe, that was subse-
quently appropriated to the Speaker.

1733. EXaSE UNPOPULAR. 181

not only to people's words and actions, but even to
their looks.

Sir Robert Walpole had so prepossessed the King
in favour of this scheme, that if it had been an act to
secure and settle the Crown of England on him and
his posterity, he could not have been more eager in the
measure, more anxious for its fate, or more solicitous
for its success.

The light in which Sir Robert Walpole had repre-
sented this scheme to the King was, that since he had
settled the peace of Europe and regulated the preten-
sions of all the great Princes — since he had shown him-
self absolute master of that balance of power which
England ought to hold — and that the wisdom and pru-
dence of his counsels had adjusted all difficulties and
got over all obstacles arising from the various views
and claims of foreign Princes — that it might be ex-
pected of him he should now turn his thoughts towards
making the best use he could of this success abroad by
letting it contribute to the ease of his subjects at home;
that to do that in the most popular and most effectual
manner would be to give ease in the land-tax, as it was
the most unequal tax, and the most generally com-
plained o^ of any tax now subsisting; and as this
measure would make every landowner and country
gentleman a zealous friend to his Government, so it
would be the glory of his reign, and one not to be
paralleled by any reign since the Revolution ; that he
had reduced the land-tax to one shilling in the pound,
which was not only lower than ever it had been since
it was first laid, but lower than the most sanguine land-
owner in the kingdom ever hoped to see it.

182 LORD HERVBT'S MEMOIES. Chap. IX.

But, besides the glory and the popularity of this
scheme, there was a consideration which, I believe, had
its weight with his Majesty, and that was, that if this
scheme took effect, one-sixth of the duties on tobacco
and wine being part of the Civil List fimds, that part
of his revenue would of course be increased one-sixth
of whatever gain should accrue to the public by this
mutation. For though, to cover this acquisition to the
Crown, it was made part of the scheme that the Civil List
duty should still be payable at the Customs, yet people
easily saw through that thin veil, and could, without
great penetration, reason that whatever measures were
taken to prevent the running of these commodities, by
making them liable to an inland duty after they had got
clear of the ports, would increase this duty in the Cus-
toms in the same proportion that it would be raised in
the Excise, since the merchant and proprietor of these
commodities would never run any risk or be at any
expense to evade the Custom-house officer at the first
gate, when at so many more afterwards he would be
equally exposed to be catched by the Excise-officer.

As this consideration of increasing the Civil List
had weighed with the King to espouse this scheme, so
Sir Robert Walpole made a second use of it by telling
the King it was the chief reason why the adverse party
opposed it ; by which means his Majesty was induced
to look on this opposition to the scheme as more per-
sonal to himself than to his minister, as there was an
advantage evidently to accrue to the one, without the
least appearance of emolument to the other.

During the whole progress of this Bill, which lasted
about three weeks, the King was under the greatest

1733. KING'S ANXIETY. 183

anxiety for the event of it Lord Hervey and Mr.
Felham were with Him and the Queen almost every
day to give them accounts, not only how people voted
and talked in the House, hut how they looked and how
they spoke, and how they caballed in the town. Every
division showing a decrease in the majority, the King
grew, every division, more and more uneasy. Upon
his saying one night to Lord Hervey that he never
knew the Opposition, on any occasion in his reign, so
strong, so sanguine, and so insolent. Lord Hervey, who
had a mind to soften the difficulties he knew the Admi-
nistration was in, put his Majesty in mind of the Dun-
kirk year, and said he thought the opposing party was
much stronger, their spirits much higher, and the
ground they fought on much better, at that junction
than he had ever known them at any other. The King
with some warmth replied, "Pooh! you talk of a time
when my servants lay under all the disadvantages it
was possible for a ministry to be exposed to. In the first
place, it was so early in my reign, that nobody knew
whether I had any resolution in my temper, or any
steadiness in my counsels, or not In the next place, the
ministry were divided and torn by contention among
themselves ; that was at a time when Townshend was
in place, and was giving Walpole all the trouble he
could, both in the Parliament and in my closet:
Carteret was not yet discharged — there were a thousand
different parties among my ministers, and nobody knew
whom I would support: at such a time it was no won-
der my business met with obstructions, or that it was
neglected, when every one that should have done it had
his own private business to mind, and knew not what

184 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IX.

he had to trust to. A prince who will be well served
in this country, must free his minister from all appre-
hensions at Court, that the minister may give all his
attention to the affairs of his master ; which, with all
the support that master can give him, are still liable,
ftx)m the nature of this Government and the capricious-
ness of the people, to ten thousand accidents and diffi-
culties unknown in other countries."

I mention this passage to show how much the Queen,
by frequently inculcating her doctrine, had in five
years changed his Majesty's first plan of government
His design at his first accession to the throne was cer-
tainly, as Boileau says of Louis XIV., —

*' Seul, sans ministre, k Texemple des Dieuz,
Faire tout par sa main et voir tout de ses yeux.*'

He intended to have all his ministers in the nature of
clerks, not to give advice, but to receive orders ; and
proposed, what by experiment he found impracticable,
to receive applications and distribute favours through
no principal channel, but to hear from all quarters, and
employ indifferently in their several callings those who
by their stations would come under the denomination
of ministers. But it was very plain, from what I have
just now related from the King's own lips, as well as
from many other circumstances in his present conduct,
that the Queen had subverted all his notions and
schemes, and fully possessed his Majesty with an
opinion that it was absolutely necessary, from the
nature of the English Government, that he should have
but one minister ; and that it was equally necessary,
from Sir Robert's superior abilities, that he should be
that one. But this work, which she now saw com-

1733. KING'S VIEWS. 185

pleted, had been the work of long time, much trouble,
and great contrivance ; for though, by a superiority of
understanding, thorough knowledge of his temper, and
much patience in her own, she could work him by de-
grees to any point where she had a mind to drive him, j
yet she was forced to do it often by slow degrees, and /
with great caution ; for, as he was infinitely jealous of
being governed, he was never to be led but by invisible
reins ; neither was it ever possible for her to make him
adopt her opinion but by instilling her sentiments in
such a manner as made him think they rose originally
from himself She always at first gave into all his
notions, though never so extravagant, and made him
imagine any change she wrought in them to be an
afterthought of his own. To contradict his will
directly, was always the way to strengthen it; and to
labour to convince, was to confirm him. Besides all
this, he was excessively passionate, and his temper upon
those occasions was a sort of iron reversed, for the
hotter it was the harder it was to bend, and if ever it
was susceptible of any impression or capable of being
turned, it was only when it was quite cool. j

At the same time that the Queen had changed his
maxims of policy, she had by degrees too entirely
altered both his opinion of his servants and his affec-
tion for them. Lord Wilmington and Lord Towns-
hend, whom he had loved and admired, he now con-
temned and disliked ; the one he had discharged from
his confidence, though he still kept him in emplojnnent,
and the other he had dismissed from both. His way of
thinking, and his behaviour towards Sir Robert, was
full as much, and as visibly, changed as to the other

>

186 LORD HERVET'S MElfOntS. Chap. DL

two ; for, instead of betraying (as formerly) a jealousy
of being thought to be governed by him — instead of
avoiding every opportunity of distinguishing and speak-
ing to him in public — instead of hating him whilst he
employed him, and grudging every power with which
he armed him — he very apparently now took all
occasions to declare him his first, or rather his sole,
minister ; singled him out always in the Drawing-room ;
received no application (military affiiirs excepted) but
from him ; and most certainly, if he loved anybody in
the world besides the Queen, he had not only an opi-
nion of the statesman, but an affection for the man.
Of this affection he gave many little instances, in talk-
ing of him, much easier to be perceived than described,
as they are things that would make no figure in repeti-
tion ; but, by the manner and at the times in which
they were said, it was very plain he loved as well as
admired him. When Lord Hervey (often to try him)
gave him accounts of attacks that had been made on
Sir Robert Walpole in the House, and the things Sir
Robert had said in defence of himself and in retaliation
on his adversaries, the King would often cry out, with
colour flushing into his cheeks and tears sometimes in
his eyes, and with a vehement oath, ^^ He is a brave
fellow ; he has more spirit than any man I ever knew.^*
The Queen, if she was by, always joined in chorus upon
such occasions : and Lord Hervey, in these partial mo-
ments, never failed to make the most he could of his
friend and patron's cause.*

s Lord Hervey adds that *' the night after the first debate on the To-
bacco Bill he, amongst many other things which had passed in the debate,
told the King and Queen that Mr. Pulteney had said in his speech that

1733. LOBD SCABBOROUGH'S REMONSTRAKCE. 187

On the Monday morning [9th April] before that
Wednesday that was appointed for the second reading
of the Bill, Lord Scarborough came to Sir Robert
Walpole, to let him know that be found the clamour so
hot and so general, that it was his opinion the Adminis-
tration ought to yield to it ; that, for his own part, how
right soever he might think this scheme in an abstracted
light, yet, considering the turn it had taken, he was
determined not to contribute to cram it down the
people's throats ; and came to tell Sir Robert that, if it
should be forced through the House of Commons, and
brought into the House of Lords, he would oppose
it there. He said, by the best information he could
get, the dislike of this scheme was almost as universal
among the soldiery as the populace, and that the mili-
tary part of the commonalty were as much prejudiced
against it as the mercantile people. The soldiers, he
said, had got a notion that it would raise the price of
tobacco, and upon this notion were so universally set
against the scheme, that they cursed the Administration
and the Parliament, murmured treason even under the
walls of the palace, and were almost as ripe for mutiny
as the nation for rebellion.

Sir Robert Walpole heard him with a great deal of
temper and patience, and at last said, ^^ My dear Lord,
you have too much honesty to suspect, and consequently
to see, how little there is in some who bring you these
tales, or get them conveyed to you, and are, without
knowing it, influenced by men who are as much inferior

the inscriptioii on Sir R. Walpole's tomb should be, " This is the man who
would have enslaved his country by an Excise ! *' at which the King was
very indicant.

188 LOBD HEKVET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IX.

to you in understanding as in integrity. We both
understand one another, and whatever may be the fiite of
ibis Bill, I have nothing but this to desire of you — as I
am your friend, and wish to have you continue mine —
when those who have kindled this flame and fomented
these discontents tiU they have brought things, as you say,
even at the door of the palace, to the brink of rebellion —
when they shall receive their reward for that conduct —
do not you make their cause your own, or sacrifice your
interest to those who have throughout this whole pro-
ceeding had no regard to yours, or to anything but the
gratification of their own capricious resentment.*'

Lord Hervey came into the room just as Sir Robert
Walpole had pronounced these words, and soon after
Lord Scarborough took his leave. Sir Robert imme-
diately told Lord Hervey what had passed, who said
he was not so much surprised as Sir Robert seemed to
be ; " For you know, Sir, I long ago told you Lord
Chesterfield governed him as absolutely as he does
any of his younger brothers: and though you may
think Lord Scarborough loves you personally, which
was the security you told me you depended upon for
his never undertaking or joining in anything against
your interest, yet I own I see very little difference
between that attachment not existing at all or existing
in a degree inferior to the influence of those who wish
to prevent its operating. But, upon the whole. Sir,
what resolution will you take, or have you taken, with
regard to dropping or going on with the Bill ? ** Sir
Robert said he must see the King and the Queen, and
be determined what course to steer by the temper and
disposition in which he found them.

1733. CONFERENCE WITH THE KING. 189

Had Lord Scarborough, from apprehension only,
said this in private to Sir Robert Walpole, it would
have left people some room to excuse his conduct, and
think his proceeding fair and honourable ; but before
he made this declaration to Sir Bobert Walpole he
had already told his opinion and the resolution to
several people, who had circulated the news of this con-
siderable deserter through all the town. He certainly
ought not, after the part he had acted, to have opened
his lips on this subject to any one but Sir Bobert ; for,
as he had been so warm a promoter of this scheme, and,
till three days before it was laid aside, on all occasions
asserting the propriety of it, most people were of
opinion his defection proceeded from the increased
number of objectors to the Bill, and not from the dis-
covery of any new objections.

This evening I9th April] Sir Bobert Walpole saw
the King in the Queen's apartment, just before the
Drawing-room, and the final resolution was then taken
to drop the Bill ; but, as there was a petition to come
from the City of London against it the next day, it was
resolved that the Bill should not be dropped till that
petition was rejected, lest it should be thought to be
done by the weight and power of the City.

Sir Bobert Walpole, in coming from this conference,
called on Lord Hervey (whose lodgings were just at
the foot of the Queen's back staircase), to let him know
what had passed. Sir Bobert was extremely disconcerted,
and seemed under full as much anxiety as he described
the King and Ihe Queen : Lord Hervey told him he had
been twice sent for that afternoon by the King, but,
not knowing in what strain to talk to him, as he was

190 LORD HERYETS MEMOIRS. Chap. DC

ignorant whether Sir Robert intended to go forward or
retreat, and that he should be asked millions of ques-
tions relating to what he saw, what he heard, and what
he thought, so, to avoid the difficulties this catechism
would lay him under, he had kept out of the way. Sir
Robert Walpole bade him be sure to stick to the neces-
sity there was of not seeming to yield this point at the
instigation of the City, and left all the rest to his own
discretion. But though Sir Robert communicated to
Lord Hervey many particulars of the conversation he
had just held with the Queen, there was one very mate-
rial circumstance, as natural for Lord Hervey to guess
as for the Minister to be a little ashamed and reluctant
to repeat, on which he was quite silent ; a circumstance
which the Queen afterwards told Lord Hervey, and
which Sir Robert Walpole never knew Lord Hervey had
been made acquainted with ; for as the one from pride
or shame had forborne to communicate, so the other in
policy did not care to let his benefactor and friend have
the mortification of knowing that what he wished should
be a secret to everybody was not so to him ; and though
many people would have reasoned differently on this
occasion, and have acquainted Sir Robert Walpole with
what they had learned, in order to make a merit of
their taciturnity afterwards ; yet Lord Hervey judged
otherwise, and looked upon this secret to be of tibe

I mature of some which all those concerned in them hate

I I you more for having it in your power to tell, than they
1 1 can love you for not making use of that power.

' The circumstance concealed was this: — when Sir
Robert Walpole told the Queen the clamour against
this BiU was grown to that height that there was no

1733. OFFERS TO RETIRE. 191

contending wi<^ it any longer, he said there were two
ways of trying to appease it, the one by dropping the
Bill (which would not be sure to quiet the commotions
the prosecuting of it had caused), the other was by drop-
ping the projector as well as the project ; which, whatever
bad consequences such yielding to clamour might have
in fiiturity, would certainly have this immediate good
effect, — that for the present, at least, all troubles would
subside, and everything be calm and still. What
troubles tibe stru^les for power, among those who had
raised these storms to subvert his interest, might occa-
sion in the Palace, and how headstrong this concession
to a mob might afterwards make that mob in iuture
administrations, were considerations, he said, which he
would not suggest, for fear he might be thought to urge
them as arguments for his own continuance in employ-
ment : whereas he was so far from desiring to be in her
Majesty's service, if she thought it was not for her ser-
vice, that he should lay down and retire with all the
satis&ction in the world ; and, if her Majesty tibought
it for the advantage of the King's affairs, or that it
would facilitate in any manner the King's business in
Parliament, that he was ready that very night to quit ;
and should never impute his disgrace to her Majesty's
want of kindness towards him, but merely to his own
ill fortune* The Queen chid him extremely for having
so ill an opinion of her as to think it possible for her to
be so mean, so cowardly, and so ungrateful, as to accept
of such an offer; and assured him that as long as she
lived she would not abandon him. When Sir Robert
Walpole made the same offer to the King, his Majesty
(as the Queen told me) made the most kingly, the

192 LOKD HERVErS MEMOIRS. Crap. DC.

most sensible, and the most resolute answer that it was
possible for a wise, a just, and a great prince to make,
to the most able and to the most meritorious servant:
but whether she dictated the words before he spoke
them, or embellished them afterwards, I know not As
well as I can remember them, they were to this effect: —
That Sir Bobert had served him honestly and faith-
fully ; that his Majesty knew all this bustle was owing
to personal enmity or contention for power in the admi-
nistration of his a£&irs ; that he knew Sir Bobert Wal-
pole's reason for concerting the land-tax scheme was,
that it might be the glory of his reign to take off the
land-tax, which had been a burden laid on the landed
interest in consequence of the Bevolution, and which
never since the Bevolution any prince had been able to
remit ; that it was true he had miscarried in that de-
sign, but that his having done so had made his Majesty
not angry with him for failing in this undertaking, but
with those who had obstructed it : he said he was very
sensible Sir Bobert Walpole could have had no interest
of his own in concerting or pushing this scheme, and
that since he had done it only for the honour and ser-
vice of his master, that that master would never forsake
him, but that they should stand or fall together. This,
as the Queen told me, was the King's answer to Sir
Bobert when he made him the offer of quitting ; and
[. that Sir Bobert should be more reluctant to own to
I Lord Hervey that he had made this offer of resigning,
I than ready to boast of its being so received, I think was
1 \ odd, but so it was.

I 1 When Lord Hervey went up to the Drawing-room
he saw her Majesty had been weeping very plentifully ;

1783. OPPOSITION AT COUItT. 193

and found her so little able to disgaise what she felt,
that she was forced to pretend head-ache and vapours,
and break up her quadrille party sooner than the usual
hour.

When the Drawing-room was over, the King, after
dismissing the rest of his servants, called Lord Hervey
into the Queen's bed-chamber, and began with great
eagerness to ask him where he had been all day, whom
he had seen, and what he had heard, and how our
iiiends and how our foes both looked ? Lord Hervey
told him he found the most zealous friends to the Excise
began to be of opinion that, considering what had hap-
pened at this end of the town, the clamour at the other
grew too hot to be straggled with. The King asked
him what he meant by ^^ the things that had happened
at this end of the town." Lord Hervey said he meant
only what was reported, and did not pretend to say
how far those reports were grounded upon truth.
" Why, what is reported ?" " Since your Majesty com-
mands me to tell you, I shall It is reported. Sir, by
the enemies to this Bill, that several of the Cabinet
Council and several of your Majesty's domestic ser-
vants have asked audiences to let your Majesty know
that they will not positively vote for the Bill ; and the
comment that is made on this report is, that if those
who have the honour to serve your Majesty in such
near and high stations did not know this declaration
would not be displeasing to you, they would certainly
not have ventured, so explicitly at least, to have made
it. This being told and almost generally believed, the
dependence on so strong a party at the present juncture
under your Majesty's roof has given the Opposition

VOL. I. o

194 LORD HBRYET'S MEMOIKS. Chap. IX.

such spirits and such strength that it is my firm opinion
the Bill cannot be carried, and, consequently, that
the friends to it had better consent to the dropping
it, than fight till its enemies grow strong enough to
reject it."

The King asked ^^whom of his Council and his
family people named for having made these declara-
tions." Lord Hervey said several of those whom his
Majesty, when he had done him the honour to talk on
this subject before, had himself named as no well*
wishers to the scheme ; but that the two that people
talked most of at present, as they were reckoned the
last that had absolutely declared themselves, were Lord
Clinton [a Lord of the Bedchamber] and Lord Scarbo-
rough [Master of the Horse]. The King replied with
great warmth, ^^ It is a lie ; those rascals in the Opposi-
tion are the greatest liars that ever spoke. Clinton has
been with me, but Scarborough never has mentioned
the Excise to me at all, and for these last five or six
days he has kept out of my way. I have not so much
as seen him, nor have any of my servants dared to tell
me they would not do what I would have them."

The King, after walking about the room in great
anger and disorder for some time, and saying several
things with great vehemence that showed plainly he
was both vexed and staggered, dismissed Lord Hervey
and charged him to write an account next day, from the
House of Commons during the debate, what face things
wore, what turn they were like to take, and how both
our friends and our foes behaved.

The petition of the City was presented the next
morning [lO^A AprilJ^^ and attended by the citizens in

1733. CITY PBTmON. 195

a train of coaches that reached from Westminster to
Temple Bar. The prayer of the petition was, that they
might be heard by their counsel against the Bill. The
debate upon it lasted till midnight, and though this was
the strongest point for the Court that had yet been de-
bated in the whole progress of the Bill, as it was contrary
to the rules and orders of the House to comply with
petitions of this nature against taxes that are going to
be laid, yet even on this point the Court party was so
weak that the rejection of this extraordinary demand
was carried by a majority only of seventeen voices [214
to 197].

The Opposition was so elate on this victory (for such
it was, properly speaking) that they concluded nothing
less was to happen upon it than a total change of the
Administration, commencing by the immediate dismiss*
sion and disgrace of Sir Robert Walpole, who was
never more struck with any defeat or less able to dis*
guise his being so than this night. He stood some
time after the House was up, leaning against the table
with his hat pulled over his eyes, some few friends with
melancholy countenances round him, whilst his enemies
with the gaiety of so many bridegrooms seemed as
just entering on the enjoyment of what they had been
so long pursuing.

As soon as the whole was over, Mr. Pelham went to
the King, and Lord Hervey to the Queen, to acquaint
them with what had passed. When Lord Hervey at
his first coming into the room shook his head and told
her the numbers, the tears ran down her cheeks and
for some time she could not utter a word ; at last she
said ^^ It is ovevj we must give toat/ ; but, pray, tell me a

o2

196 LORD HEBVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IX.

little how it passed." Lord Hervey said, that without
any partiality he could assure her Majesty, in point of
argument, reasoning, and good speaking, that the
Court party had, without any comparison, entirely the
victory in the debate;* but that he thought this no
comfort, since the only inference to be drawn from it
was, how determined our foes and how faltering our
friends must be when in such a point the one could
venture so strenuously to attack and the other were
reduced so faintly to defend us ; but he said it was not
to be wondered at that the numbers of the opponents to
this Bill should increase when everybody now believed
that the majority of the King's Council had ranged
themselves in that class, and that my Lord Boling-
broke's party at St James's was more numerous than
at Dawley/ " A great many in the King's service,
Madam, are said openly to have declared themselves
against this measure, and many more are thought to
have taken the quiet part of lying by only till things
are ripe for a revolution in the ministry, at which junc-
ture it is expected they will break forth and show
themselves not less inveterate enemies to Sir Robert
Walpole than the others, though they have had a little

s AH the prominent men at each ade spoke : —

For the Petiiion. Against it.

Sir John Bernard. Sir Robert Walpole.

Mr. Sandys. Mr. Horace Walpole.

Mr. Gibbon. Mr. Winnington.

Mr. Bootle. Solicitor-general Talbot.

Mr. Pulteney. Attorney-general Yorke.

Sir William Wyndham. Sir William Yonge.

Mr. Plumer. Mr. Henry Pelham.

Mr. Heathcote.

Mr. Wyndham.
< Bolingbroke's country-house.

1733. OFFICIAL DISCIPLINE. 197

more caution in appearing so ;" but thus much Lord
Hervey said he would venture to affirm, that neither
Sir Robert Walpole nor any minister who should suc-
ceed him would ever be able to carry on the King's
business upon that foot ; for if the subordinate ministers
were to play a safe game, by either underhand op-
posing or acting a lukewarm part in sustaining what
was thought expedient for the King's service, in such
cases, though the minister would always be the first
sacrifice, yet the power of the Crown must in some
degree suffer too ; and what ruined the one must at the
same time greatly distress the other. The Queen said
he was certainly in the right ; that discipline was as
necessary in an administration as an army; that mutiny
must no more go unpunished in the one than the other,
and that refiising to march or deserting ought to be
looked upon in the same light

Whilst she was saying this the King (who had dis-
missed Mr. Pelham) came in, and the Queen made
Lord Hervey repeat to the King all he had been saying
to her. The King heard willingly, but that night said
very little ; he asked many questions, but was much
more costive than usual in his comments upon the
answers he received to them ; however, when he asked
Lord Hervey if he could remember some of those who
had swelled the defection that day, as Lord Hervey
repeated the following names, his Majesty tacked the
following remarks to them : — Lord James Cavendish,
**a/ooZ;" Lord Charles Cavendish, ^^ he is half mad ;^*
Sir William Lowther, "a whimsical fellow ;*' Sir Tho-
mas Prendergast, "aw Irish blockhead;*' Lord Tyr-
connel, " a puppy that never votes twice together on the

198 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IX.

same side.^^^ There were more, which I have now
forgot, but something in the same style his Majesty had
to say on every deserter that was named. As soon as
Lord Hervey was dismissed he went to supper at Sir
Robert Walpole's, who had assembled about a dozen
friends to communicate the resolution taken of giving
up the Bill. After supper, when the servants were
gone, Sir Robert opened his intentions with a sort of
unpleased smile, and saying " This dance it unll no far"
ther go^ and to-morrow I intend to sound a retreat;
the turn my friends will take will be to declare they
have not altered their opinion of the proposition, but
that the clamour and the spirit that has been raised
makes it necessary to give way, and that what they now
do is not owning what they have done to be wrong,
but receding for prudential reasons from what they still
think as right as ever."

On this text he preached for some time to this select
band of his firmest friends, and then sent them to bed
to sleep if they could.

On the morrow [\\th April\ when the order of the day
for the second reading of the Tobacco Bill was read. Sir
Robert got up and, after a very long and artful speech,
proposed the putting it off for two months. The anti-
Excise party, not satisfied with this victory, but flushed
with conquest, insolent in their success, and solicitous
to push their triumph, said it was not sufficient to drop
such a Bill in this soft manner; that so wicked an
attack upon the liberties of British subjects ought to
be treated in a different manner ; that it ought to be
stigmatized with every mark of ignominy that could be

» They had all originally voted for the Bill.

1733. RIOTS. 199

put upon it; that rejecting it in the most peremptory
manner was the part which it became a House of
Commons^ jealous of the rights and tenacious of the
liberties of the people, to act on this occasion; and
that nothing less would appease the nation. Sir
William Wyndham, therefore (who led the van of
these florid declaimers on this popular topic), insisted
on a previous question, whether the postponing question
proposed by Sir Bobert should be then put or not, and
declared his reason for being against putting the main
question then was, because he intended afterwards to
move that of rejection.

But this conduct, though it did not weaken their
triumph without doors, lost them many friends within ;
several of those who had been originally for the Bill
and were now come to wish it laid aside, being much
more desirous to carry that point without a division,
than to be forced to appear against what at first they
had so zealously espoused.*^ After a long debate, there-
fore, the opposing party, perceiving they had endea-
voured to lead their new troops farther than they cared
to advance, gave up the rejecting the Bill, and sub-
mitted without a division to the gentler method at first
proposed by Sir Bobert Walpole of postponing the
farther consideration of it for two months.

The anti-Excise mob, who had filled the lobby and
Court of Bequests^ rather ftiller to-day than any other

< Twenty-seven Members who had supported the Bill changed their
votes.— -ffw/. Reg.

7 The Court of Requests was a large and rerj ancient hall of the palace
of Westminster, subsequently appropriated to the House of Lords, who sat
there till the fire of 1834. It has been, since that event, occupied hj the
Commons.

200 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIES. Chap. IX.

in which this affair had been imder. consideration, fol-
lowed the example of their friends within doors, and
with correspondent insolence in their demeanour greeted
every member as he passed whom they knew to have
been for the Excise with ironical thanks, hissings, halloo-
ing, and all other insults which it was possible to put
upon them without proceeding to blows.

Brigadier Churchill and Lord Hervey having run
this mercantile gauntlet, had both (thoi^h separately)
the same thought, and concluded the agreeable distinct
tions paid to them would naturally be heaped sevenfold
on their friend and patron; they both, therefore,
stemmed this torrent back again, returned into the
House, told Sir Robert what had passed, and prepared
him for what, if he would expose himself, he must ex-
pect to meet They desired him to avoid it as he had
done the first night, and go through Lord Halifax's;
but he said there was no end of flying from such
menaces, and that the meeting dangers of this kind was
the only way to put an end to them, reasoning, perhaps,
as Suetonius says Caesar was thought to do when he was
desired to avoid giving opportunity to conspirators
against his life : ^^ Insidias undique imminentis subire
semel confessum satius essequam cavere semper " (" It
is better once to confront danger than to be always
avoiding it ").

Surrounded, therefore, by Lord Isla, Lord Hervey,
Brigadier Churchill, his son [Edward], two or three
more friends, and two servants, he presented himself to
these rioters, who made so great a disorder, notwith-
standing the protection of this circle immediately round
him, and in spite of a lane of forty or fifty constables,

1788. WALPOLB ASSAULTED. 201

who were placed there to secure every member a free
and unmolested passage, that between the pressings of
the mob to insult him and the zeal of the civil magis-
trates to defend him, there was such jostling and
struggling, thajb had anybody fallen down they must in-
evitably have been trampled to death. The oaken
sticks and constables' staffi were so flippant over the
heads of friends and enemies, without any possibility of
distinction, that many blows were given and received at
random. But nobody of the Walpole faction was hurt
or wounded excepting one, Mr. Cunningham,® a Scotch-
man, in the breast, Mr. Ned Walpole in the arm» and
Lord Hervey on the forehead.

With much difficulty Sir Robert at last got to his
coach and went home. Lord Hervey went to St
James's, stayed with the King and Queen two hours,
and told them everything that had passed in the House,
but said not one word of what had happened out of it,
not knowing whether Sir Robert Walpole would think
it most for his interest to complain of the injury or to
sink the affiront. Lord Hervey knew it would always
be time enough to tell the story, but if once told there
would be no recalling it ; and therefore left it in Sir
Robert's option to determine, as his own judgment and
inclination should direct, whether it should be secreted
or published.

The next morning early he went to Sir Robert Wal-
pole to acquaint him with the silent part he had acted,
and his reasons for it. Sir Robert thanked him ex-

8 I presume Henry Cunningham, M.P. for Stirlingshire, " Commissary-
Gcnersd in Scotland," — " who," says Tindal, '* had the courage to draw his
sword and keep, off the mob till hb friend escaped.*'

202 LORD HBRYEY'S MJSMOIRS. Cuaf. IX.

tremely, but said the resolution was taken to complain
in the House of what had passed ; and, pursuant to this
resolution, this incident was so well managed, the insult
to the House so artfully set forth, and every part so well
acted by the dramatis personae in this Parliamentary
farce, that on the relation made first by Lord Hervey,
then by Mr. Pelham, and then by Sir Bobert Walpole
to the House, this accidental scuffle was treated as a
deep-laid scheme for assassination,* whilst the resentment
against such proceedings was so well improved, and the
whole thing taken up with so high a hand, that the
House came nemine contradicente into three or four
resolutions, that condemned, in the strongest terms, all
actors, abettors, promoters, or encouragers of these
riotous, tumultuous transactions; and, to crown all, a
supplemental order was made by the House that the
City members should carry copies of these resolutions to
the Lord Mayor that he might communicate them
throughout his jurisdiction. Sir John Bernard, one of
the City members, having the day before declared that
he wished this multitude at the doors of the House were
ten thousand, and the citizens all along having fomented
the riots and encouraged these applications to Parlia-
ment, it was particularly mortifying to them and their
representatives to have their triumph on this occasion

9 Horace Walpole, of course, adopted that version, but mistakes the night
of the erent After mentioning a former not very probable design of having
Sir Robert murdered by a mobj he proceeds : ** Such an attempt was ac-
tually made in 1733, at the time of the famous Excise Bill. As the minister
descended the stairs of the House of Commons on the night on which ha
carried the bill, he was guarded on one side by his son Edward, and on the
other by General Charles Churchill, but the crowd behind endeavoured to
throw him down, as he was a bulky man, and trample him to death ; and that
not succeeding, they tried to strangle him by pulling his red cloak tight, but
fortunately the strings broke by the violence of the tug." — JUmtnucences,

1733. LOED HSRYEY'S 8PEECH. 203

turned into a vote of censure ; but as strong as the City
party had been two days before in the House, the cur-
rent was now turned, and the stream too strong against
them for the rhetoric of any of their advocates and par-
tisans to divert its course.

The iUuminations, mobs, bonfires, and disorders that
there had been in the City the night before, when Sir
Robert Walpole, with a fat woman (meant for the
Queen), were burnt in effigy, contributed almost as
much as what had happened in the Court of Bequests
to exasperate every body against the conduct of the
citizens.

The general cry was that the liberty of speech, the
freedom of debate, and the very essence of Parliament
were at an end if the House of Commons suffered itself
to be actuated by any foreign influence whatever, or
permitted anything but their own wisdom to turn the
balance in their determinations; that much had been
formerly said in debates on the Pension Bill how neces-
sary it was to ward against the pecuniary corrupt in-
fluence of the Crown, but that the intimidating influence
of a mob at the doors of the House, though the other
extreme, was equally destructive of that authority and
independence which the Commons ought to maintain^
and which was essential not only to their dignity as part
of the legislature, but essential also to the preservation
of the constitution on the free and flourishing foot upon
which it now stood.

Lord Hervey in his speech said, that if these insolent
encroachments of the populace were suffered to grow
and were given way to in this manner — if the opinion of
the rabble was to be taken on the subjectrmatter of

204 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. IX.

everything debated here, and their clamour, and not our
judgment, to make decisions — in a little time he should
expect to see Acts of Parliament passed in London as
the Plebiscita}^ were passed in Rome ; and instead of the
representatives of the people with decency and method
considering what was proper and fit to be done, that he
supposed he should see the Speaker at Charing-Gross or
the Stocks-market proposing laws to a tumultuous mob,
who, like the Boman plebeians, would enact, rescind,
promulgate, and repeal, make, and break laws^ just as
the caprice of their present temper and the insinuations
of their present leaders should instigate and direct. In
short, this incident had given such a turn to the spirit
of the Commons, that the Court party this day might
have done whatever they would. But as this was the
first time, so I believe one may venture to say it will be
the last that ever a first minister found any advantage
fipom being mobbed.

As it was universally believed that this riot was fo-
mented by the upper sort of citizens, and put in practice
by the inferior, so the names of merchants and traders
that had all this winter, whenever they were mentioned,
put the whole House in an uproar with zeal in their
favour, had now lost all their :«irtue. The Commons,
and the country gentlemen in particular, grew jealous of
their own power, were afraid of the ill effects that might
attend the letting any class of men in to share it, and
began to think it was high time to curb that spirit which
they had contributed to raise.

Besides this, as there were many who had been for
dropping this Bill merely fi*om apprehending the danger

10 Laws passed by the people without the concurrence of the Senate.

1788. JACOBITE REJOICINGS. 205

of riot and clamour — many more who, without being
enemies to Sir Kobert Walpole, were against it from
prudential views to their elections, and because they did
not dare to be for it ; so both these classes of people — the
first from a desire to discountenance tumult, and the
other from regard to him whom they had opposed with
regret — ^were ready to join in any resolutions that should
demonstrate their opposition to the Bill not to have
been personal or to raise clamour, and that should show
their dislike was to the project and not to the projector.

For a fortnight after the rejection of this Bill, nothing
was heard of but rejoicings in all the great towns, and
yarious indications of the people's enmity to the scheme
and its abettors, as well as their joy on its miscarriage
and their gratitude to its opponents. This joy was car-
ried so far at Oxford, that for three nights together,
round the bonfires made there, the healths of Ormond,
Bolingbroke, and James the Third were publicly drank ;
and so much treason talked, and so many disorders com-
mitted, by the students as well as the townsmen, that the
Vice-Chancellor's authority, joined to that of the civil
ms^tracy, were hardly sufficient to quell the tumults.

These treasonable riots, and mixing the Crown in the
present disputes, gave the friends of the minister an
opportunity of saying that the Excise scheme was not
the real cause of all the clamour that sheltered itself
under that pretence, but that the disaffected to this
Government took this occasion, and made that their
plea, for raising disturbances and kindling feuds in the
kingdom, by which they hoped to distress if not to over-
turn the Government

206 LORD HERVETS HEUOIRS. Chap. X.

CHAPTER X.

Walpole resolves to punish official mutineers-— Lords Chesterfield and
Clinton dismissed — Character of the other Ministers and Courtiers — The
Prince of Wales and his Friends hostile — ^Walpole assembles his Partjr
and harangues them — ^Triumph in the Commons — South Sea Question in
the Lords — Deserters — ^Bishop Hoadley.

In the mean time Sir Kobert Walpole having experi-
enced how dangerous it had been to suffer his enemies
at Court to be talking and plotting against him with im-
punity, and to leave them at quiet in their employments
whilst they were making him so uneasy in hisy resolved
to show that the lenity, indolence, fear, or policy that
had hitherto prevailed so far as to make him acquiesce
under such usage, was now at an end, and that he was
able both to discern and punish all those who ventured
to treat him in this manner. The first sacrifices made
to these his new maxims of government were Lord
Chesterfield and Lord Clinton.* The Duke of Grafton
was sent from the King (the very next day after the
House of Commons came to those resolutions concerning
the riots) to demand the Steward's staff of the first; and
one of the Secretaries of State was at tiie same time
ordered to write to the last, to let him know the King
had no farther occasion for his services either as Lord

* Hugh Fortescue, in whose favour the dormant barony of Clinton was
called out of abeyance in 1721, and who was in 1746 created Earl of Lin.
coin. He died without f

nsa DISMISSALS. 207

of the Bedchamber or Lord Lieutenant of Devonshire.*
It was as much a matter of wonder in the town, how so
insignificant a creature as Lord Clinton, when he was
dismissed from Court, could contrive to make himself
considerable enough to be turned out, as it was at his i
entrance there how he had been thought of consequence /
enough ever to be taken in. A more moderate genius/ 1 \
could not be found in all the hereditary possessors of
ennobled folly throughout the whole peerage, his kins*
man, my Lord Falmouth, not excepted. He was a man
of a mean aspect, a meaner capacity, but meanest of all
in his inclinations : his dialect and his whole conversation j ; "V
was a heap of vulgarisms, both as to sentiment and
expression, and his only mark of thinking was hisj
pursuit and love of money.

Lord Chesterfield wrote the King a letter next morn-
ings of which he gave me the following copy.* The
Eang sent him no answer ; and Sir Robert Walpole, to
whom the King showed it, and who did not know I had
seen it, told me that Chesterfield had written the King
a letter, extremely laboured, but not well done.

As to Sir Robert Walpole pushing out Lord Ches-
terfield, and at this juncture, he was certainly not to be
blamed for it, since it was indeed fiill time for him, if he
had power, to make some examples among those who
distressed and opposed him at Court ; for hitherto, in this
reign, all his known ill-wishers faring as well as his friends,

> Sir Robert gave an additional proof of his Court favour and power hj
the appointment of his son, Lord Walpole, to the Lord Lieutenancy of
Devon, vice Lord Clinton.

3 This copy does not appear.

208 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. X.

it became the interest of every one to be thought his foe,
since without losing them anything in present, that cha-
racter secured them a reversionary interest in case of a
change with those who should succeed. As affairs now
stood at Court, almost all the great offices and employ-
ments were filled up by men who, though they did not
directly vote against the present measures, yet took the
liberty of talking very freely against them ; and neither
had, nor desired to be thought to have, any great cordi-
ality towards Sir Kobert Walpole. The Dukes of
Devonshire, Grafton,^ and Newcastle were the only
three I can name who either professed themselves his
fiiends or acted as such — a triumvirate whose friendship
was much more considerable from their titles and estates
than from any assistance their judgment was capable of
giving in private council, or their oratory in public
assemblies. The two first were mutes, and the last
'^ often wished so by those he spoke for, and always by

those he spoke to.

As to Lord Harrington, the other Secretary of State,
be had reduced himself to a state of annihilation : he
was absolutely nothing — nobod/s friend, nobody's foe,
^ of use to nobody, and of prejudice to nobody. There
was something very singular both in this man's acquisi-
tion of fame and his loss of it ; for when he was at the
Court of Spain, without doing any thing there that might
not have been transacted by a common clerk, all parties

^ Charles, second duke, born in 1683, now Lord Chamberlain — *' a
pr^ty gentleman^** says Mackaj — '< a slobberer without one good quality,"
adds Swift.

^

1788. MALCONTENTS. 209

at home flattered and courted him. People talked,
heard, and read of nothing hut Lord Harrington ; and
as soon as he came oyer, and was made Secretary of i
State, the sound of his name began to die away : he was f
forgotten in his eminence — seen every day, and never
mentioned.

As for my Lord President of the Council, the con-
temptible Earl of Wilmmgton, he hated Sir Robert in
his heart ; and though he did not dare to speak against
him himself approved and caressed those that did ; and
if anybody else should have courage enough to attack
him, or strength enough to puU him down, no man in
England wished better success to such an undertaking
than Lord Wilmington, or would be more ready to
trample on Sir Robert if it prevailed.

The Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
was in the same situation and way of thinking as my
Lord President He hated Sir Robert Walpole, without
having received any injury, and wished him out, without
proposing any advantage from it; for let who would
succeed him, the Duke of Dorset or Lord Wilmington
could not be more, and in all probability would have
been less. When Lord Chesterfield was turned out, he
said people might imagine his conduct had been rash
and indiscreet; but that if my Lord Wilmington and
the Duke of Dorset had not acted like real knaves, he
had not behaved like a seeming fooL This declaration,
as well as many other occurrences at that time, made
people imagine that these two men had given great hope,
if not strong assurances, to the opposing party, that
when matters were ripe for a revolt they would join
them.

VOL. I. P

<.

210 LORD HERYETS MEMOIRS. Chap. X.

The Duke of Argyle,^ who was at this time Master
of the Ordnance, Governor of Portsmoulh, and had a
regiment of horse, was not better satined than the rest
As he was an ambitious man, he envied Sir Robert
Walpole ; as he was a military man, he disliked him ;
and as a Scotchman, he hated him. His pride made
him detest the possessor of any power superior to his
own ; and as the opinion of his own weight and merit,
joined to an insatiable avarice, made him think he never
could have his due in honorary employments or enough
in lucrative ones, so he was always asking and always
receiving, yet never obliged and never contented.

The Duke of Bolton's being out of humour, and Sir
Robert Walpole's declared enemy, considering what he
held from the favour of the Court under this administra-
tion, would have been more extraordinary than all the
rest, if it had not been for that great and common solu-
tion for the many otherwise unaccountable riddles in
people's conduct, which was his being a great fool ; but
this explains a multitude of difficulties in judging of
multitudes of people, as well as the Duke of Bolton,
for when one can once, without hesitation, pronounce a
man absolutely a fool, to wonder at any of his actions
afterwards, or seek a reason for them, is only putting
oneself in his class ; and I am no more surprised to see

ft John, second, and usually called the great, Duke of Argyle, cele-
brated by Pope—

<< Argyle the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field."

But, on the other hand, Lord Hervey's testimony seems to corroborate the
judgment poned on him in the notes to the Sh^fhik Corre^xmdencey that
there was reason to suspect " that this great duke was, in his political
life, but a petty mtriguer, a greedy courtier, and a factious patriot.**—
vol. ii. p. 119.

1783. MALC0KTBNT3. 211

an interested fool act i^ainst his interest^ than I am to
dee a hlind man go out of his way. The Duke of
Bolton was at flift time Governor of the Isle of Wight,
Banger of the New Forest, and had a regiment; yet
with all this the Duke of Bolton was not satisfied, for
heing as proud as if he had been of any consequence
besides what his employments made him, as vain as if
he had some merit, and as necessitous as if he had no
estate, so he was troublesome at Court, hated in the
country, and scandalous in his regiment The dirty
tricks * he played in the last to cheat the Grovemment
of men, or his men of half-a-crown, were things unknown
to any Colonel but his Ghrace, no griping Scotsman
excepted. As to his interest in Parliament by the
members he nominaUy made there, these were aU virtu-
ally made by the Court, as they were only made by him
in consequence of the powerful employments he held
from the Court^

In all this Excise afiair the Prince in public acted a
ffllent^ quiet part; and Dodington, as his first minister,
followed an example which in all probability was set
him by his own dictates. However, by Dodington's
never speaking in (he House for the Excise, and by Mr.

• This is alluded to in one of the satiric ballads attribated to 8ir C. H.
Williams—

** Now Bolton comes with beat of drams,
Though fighting be his lothing,
He much dislikes both guns and pikes,
But relishes the doikmg,"
'' Coxe places at thb time, and to the immediate account of the Excise
scheme, the dismissal of the Dukes of Bolton and Montrose, and of the
Lords Burlington, Marchmont, Stair, and Cobham ; but we shall see that
these dismissals (though no doubt originally influenced by the opposition
of those Lords to the Excise) took place somewhat later, and on a different
point.

p2

212 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. X.

Tovmshend® (domestic favourite and Groom of the Bed-
chamber to the Prince) voting against it, and by the
distinctions the Prince showed on all occasions to Lord
Cobham, Lord Stair, Lord Chesterfield, and all that
were the most violent against this scheme, it was not
difficult to guess what his Boyal Highnesses opinion of
it was, or which way his wishes pointed. The King, as
Sir Robert Walpole told me, made him the offer of
obliging the Prince to turn out Mr. Townshend, which
Sir Robert refused. He at the same time told me, that
if it were not for fear of making a breach between the
King and his son, he both could and would turn out
Dodington ; " for this,** added he, " is the second time
that worthy gentleman has proposed to rise by treading
upon my neck.**

But notwithstanding this disposition of most of the
great officers of the Crown towards Sir Robert Walpole,
and notwithstanding the unpopularity which all ministers
incur who have been long vested with power — notwith-
standing the particular run against him in the country
on account of the Excise scheme, and notwithstanding
his defeat in the prosecution of it in Parliament — yet
the absolute declaration of the Crown in his favour, by
these early and explicit marks (the dismissions of Lord
Chesterfield and Lord Clinton), saved tihe Ministry ; for
this put a damp on people's expectations of a change,
which expectations, joined to the clamours of the dis-
obliged, and the vigorous attacks of those who reckoned

8 Colonel William Townshend, third son of Charles Viscount Towns-
hend. He had also the lucrative office of Usher of the Exchequer, which,
on his death in 1738, Sir Robert gave to his son Horace, and that with two
or three other smaller sinecures made him an income of above 60001. a year.
—Quart. Rev. vol. Izziv. p. 399.

1733. THE COURT SUPPORTS WALPOLE. 213

themselves next oars, would, without this express de-
claration of the Crown to support Sir Robert, have in-
fallibly got the better of him.

Many thought that the Queen imagined her power
with the King depended at this time on her being able
to maintain Sir Robert Walpole, consequently that she
looked on his cause as her own, and thought their inte-
rests were so inseparably interwoven, that whatever hurt
the one must strike at the other; but these conjectures
were mistaken : the Queen knew her own strength with
the King too well to be of this opinion, or to apprehend
the loss of her power would have been the consequence
of the loss of his. The future Ministry would certainly
have been of her nomination, in case of a change, as
much as the present, and if they had subsisted, as much
at her devotion, for had she found them less so^ their
reign would not have been long.

But it is very probable her pride might be somewhat
concerned to support a minister looked upon in the
world as her creature, and that she might have a mind
to defeat the hope Lady Suffolk • might have conceived
of being ^able to make any advantage of the King*s
seeing himself reduced by the voice of the people to
dismiss a man whom her private voice had so long con-
demned. Besides this, both the King and the Queen
were possessed with an opinion that Sir Robert Walpole
was, by so great a superiority, the most able man in the
kingdom; that he understood the revenue, and knew
how to manage that formidable and refractory body,
the House of Commons, so much better than any other

* Mrs. Howard had become Lady Suffolk in 1731.

214 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIEtS. Chap. X.

man, that it was impossible for the business of the Crown
to be well done without him.

However, the Opposition having gained tiiis victory
over him and his Excise scheme, notwithstanding the
obstinacy of the Court in maintaining him, thought they
should still carry their point and force the Court to give
him up, provided ttey could show the King that the
representatives of tiie people were as much i^ainst this
man in their hearts as the people tiiemselv^ and that
the Parliament was not better inclined to him than the
mob.

In order to effect this, a motion was made in thQ
House by the Opposition for appointing a committee of
one-and-twenty persons to be chosen hy haUot to
examine into the frauds committed in the Customs.

This motion Mr. Pelham unwarily gave into ; for the
very same people to deny a committee being appointed
to examine into these frauds, which, to justiiy the Excise
scheme, they had represented so notorious, was certainly
impossible; but what the Court party ought to have
insisted on was, that this committee should be a com-
mittee of the whole House — they ought to have stuck
to that, and not at tiiis juncture to have trusted the de-
termination of so important an affitir to the dark juggle
of a ballot.

The consenting to this motion was an imprudence in
the Court party, but not a greater than that committed
by those who might have reaped the advantage of it ;
for when this ballot was agreed to, the opponents, instead
of lying by for this battle in masquerade, which was to
be fought the week after, led their troops to fight in the
interim with bare faces on a petition from the druggists

nss. WALPOLE'S SPEECH. 215

to relax the Excise laws, on which question the anti-
courtiers were beaten by a majority of 250 to 100.

I shall say nothing more on what passed previous to
this ballot, or what was thought of it, or what was ex-
pected from it, because I cannot explain it better than
by giving a copy of Sir Robert Walpole's speech to the
Whigs, who, the night before this ballot, were all sum-
moned to a meeting ^® at the Cockpit, in order to agree
on the list that should be sworn in by them the next
day. As I only took this speech down from my
memory, and never saw one word of it but that night at
the Cockpit^ it will be very imperfect, and must want
much of the energy and many of the ornaments with
which it was pronounced. I begged Sir Robert to give
me a copy, but he assured me, upon his word and
honour, that he had never put one syllable of it in
writing.

Sib Robert Walfolb's Speech.

" Gentlemen, — ^The reason of your being ^assembled here
is to consider of a ballot appointed for to-inorra|f, to choose a
committee to examine into the frauds and abuses in the Cus-
toms to the prejudice of trade and diminution of the Revenue.
These are the words of the Resolution of the House on Thurs-
day, and this the pretence for appointing this committee. The
true reason of this question having been proposed to the House
nobody in this company, and few people out of it, I believe are
at a loss to guess. Late incidents in Parliament have so flushed
those who generally difler in opinion with this company, with

10 This is no doabt the meeting which Coze, and after him Lord Mahon,
on the authority of Mr. White, M.P. for Retford, state to hare been held
preYiotts to abandoning the Excise scheme. Mr. White's memory certainly
failed him : there was no meedng about the Excise scheme, when it would
have been useless, if not mischievous ; and there was on this ballot, when it
became necessary to rally eveiy individual vote of the party.

216 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. X

such hopes of success, and put them upon pushing what they
call theu* triumph so far, that their common and open boastings
are, that they had but to procure this ballot to show all the world
that though they always voted in a minority barefaced, yet
whenever there should be an opportunity for the majority to
show their hearts and their sentiments without restraint, that
all mankind would then perceive that the present measures
were as much disapproved by those who were forced from secret
and indirect influence to give a sanction to them, as by those who
always avowedly and openly appeared in opposition to them.
If I said this was their only view, I should misstate the case,
because I believe they did think that those who generally difier
from them might possibly have done so in this proposition, and
that then it would have appeared in the votes throughout all the
kingdom that those concerned in the Government and called
the Court party, after pretending to set a scheme on foot for
the correction of fraud which they had so loudly complained of,
did, as soon as inspection into those frauds was proposed, reftise
to come into that proposition, and put a negative upon it ; the
consequence of which would have been, that the worthy gentle-
men, who have made it their business to traduce and defame
those concerned either in formmg or promoting this scheme,
would have said it was very plain from the proceeding, that
the frauds were not so great as, to serve the present turn, they
had been represented ; or that in reality the design of those
who had complained of them was not to apply a remedy to
them. This was the consequence they hoped from the pro-
posal if it was rejected, and the other was the advantage they
expected to make of its being received. Designing, therefore,
to avail themselves of the ferment in which they had put the
nation, and reluctant to let that dangerous storm they had so
industriously blown up subside, this question was, at a general
meeting of their amphibious party, proposed and agreed to.
When it came to be offered in the House, whether it was from
accident, from surprise, or frx)m judgment, that it was given
in to, I shall not inquire, nor is that inquiry material, or the
subject of your present consideration; but when it passed
nemine cantradicente, they did flatter themselves their party was

1783. WALPOLB'S SPEECH. 217

80 strong in the House that they should be able to carry their
list modelled and filled up in what manner they thought fit.
Their lists, therefore, were settled and agreed to that night,
and given out in the House next morning. Elate with what
had already happened, and sanguine in the expectation of what
was to happen, they had already given out that the indiscretion
of their adversaries in permitting this pitched battle in masque-
rade, had fixed their victory and your defeat, and they still
(vainly, I hope) imagine that you are to be tricked or cajoled
into a Declaration, under your own hands, that for the six years
that this Parliament has sat you have been constantly aiding,
abetting, avowing, and supporting men and measures, which
you were glad of the first opportunity to prove you thought
ought not to be encouraged or pursued, and that you would
show you disapproved the one and wished destruction to the
other. This, if they were to carry their list, must and will be
the interpretation put upon your conduct ; and the next step
they will take will be to arm this committee with such powers
as shall throw the conduct of everything into the hands of those
who compose it, and, consequently, delegate the whole sway
and authority of the House of Commons to the particulars of
this list. However, the ill success of the druggists' petition
made them repent their precipitation in publishing their list,
and showed them they had flattered themselves and proceeded
on a deception, when they thought they were strong enough to
carry that list in the manner it now stands, and that the com-
plexion of this Parliament was enough changed to desire to
fight under the banner of such leaders. When I have said
this. Gentlemen, I desire you would cast your eyes on that list,
and examine one moment the names of which it is composed :
there are ten of the highest denomination of Tories, ten discon-
tented Whigs, and one who has acted so often in both these
characters that it is hard to say what it is. The conjunction
and union of such men, almost as difierent in their views and
principles from one another as from those to whom I am speak-
ing, shows plainly, that to break into the Whig party and over-
turn the present system of Government, there is nothing that
any of these opponents will not do, and that there is no associa-

218 LORD HBRVETS MBM0IR8. Chak X.

tion they will not enter into, though never so unnatural, to pro-
secute that main point and play the power out of the hands in
which it is at present lodged into those where they wish to place
it. But let not the firmness and resolution of your adversaries
so far surpass yours, as to make it appear that they have virtue
and abilities to attack you with, which you want for your de*
fence ; let them see they have to do with such as are neither
blind to the designs of their enemies nor to the paths of their
own interest ; that you have too great a regard for the peace
and prosperity of your country to commit the care of it to such
heads ; that you do not desire to consign the Grovemment of this
kingdom to a set of men, half of which, if they act on any prin*
ciples, act on a principle to overturn the Government, whilst
the other half are at least ignorantly promoting the ends and
playing the game of the enemies to that Government and Esta-
blishment to which they profess themselves well-wishers and
friends, and have no way left to excuse their conduct, whilst
they are every day and every hour consulting with Jacobites,
taking directions from Jacobites, and promoting Jacobite mea-
sures, but barely professing that they mean no advantage or
assbtance to the Jacobite cause ; and consequently reduce their
behaviour to this option, that they must either confess they have
been overreadied and induced to do what they do not mean, or
that they do really mean that which they dare not own.

*' This, Gentlemen, is the true state of the present case and
the true character of this motley party you have to deal with :
patriotism is the preamble to all their harangues, patriotism is
the rudder by which they pretend to steer all their actions ; but
the contention of this ballot is in plain and intelligible language
for dominion, for donunion between Whigs and Tories, and the
sole design of it is to feel the pulse of this Parliament, whether
they wish for a change or not : and though some may pretend the
contest lies between contented and discontented Whigs, yet let
anybody examine the adverse list ; let them see whether it is
composed of discontented Whigs or equal parts of Tories and
such as call themselves Whigs whilst they are doing all the
work of those who profess quite contrary principles ; let them
reflect who, in the unnatural assemblage of this opposition, has

1733. WALPOLETS SPEECH. 219

taken the lead in all debates and in all measures — ^Whig
or Tory? let them consider who has dictated and who has
goyemed whilst they have been the minority,^^ and, conse*
quently, who would goyem were they to become the majority ;
let Gentlemen, I say^ reflect on these few self-eyident truths^
and then let them say whether the present contention for
power is betweai Whigs and Whigs, or between Whigs and
Jacobites.

** Nobody pan imagine that the Whigs in oppositicm conld be
so weak as Qot to know that some names inserted in this list
would do them more hurt, and fight our battle more strongly,
than any arms we could provide for ourselves. How then came
they inserted ? Why, die Jacobites insisted, and the Whigs
were forced to give way ; and if in these preliminaries to domi*
nion, if in these dawnings of power (as they call the present in*
cidents, and believe them to be), if in this first step, I say, the
Jacobites assumed authority and carried their point, can it be
imagined but what they were able to do in a list for this com-
mittee, they would be able to do in a list for an administration ;
and if they found themselves at the helm there, does anybody
that hears me want to be told what must become of the Whig
cause, party, and principles ? What must become of all the
Bevolution measures that have been pursued with so much stea-
diness and maintained with so much glory for above forty years ?
What must become of this Government and this Family, and
the true freedom, liberty, welfare, and prosperity of this
country?

^* I shall avoid eveiything that is personal as fiu: as I can ;
as for myself, I am but one, and what becomes of one man is of
very little importance to the public or to any class of men ; but
as I have always fought on Whig principles, I will never desert
them ; as I have risen by Whigs, I will stand or &11 with them ;
if I am not to be supported or cannot be supported by them, I
scorn to ask or take support firom any other party ; and I will
never condescend to seek refuge among those to whom I have

i^ He means Wyndham and the Jacobite8--and above all, Boling-
broke.

220 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. X.

80 often bid defiance ; it is in Whig principles I have lired, and
in Whig principles I will die ; it is by the assistance and favour
of Whigs, joined to a great deal of undeserved good fortune,
that I am raised to the height where I now stand ; in gratitude
I have always to the utmost of my power obliged, maintained,
and favoured that party to whom I could give nothing, because
I owed everything ; and to whom, if my situation enables me
to be useful and serviceable, I was not conferring obligations
but paying debts, and returning those kindnesses which I had
first received. I am now therefore. Gentlemen, not pleading
my own cause, but the cause of the Whig party ; I entreat you
for your own sakes, for the sake of this Government and this
Family, for the sake and for the cause of liberty, to exert your-
selves with spirit and with unanimity on this occasion, that you
may defeat and render abortive the scheme of those malevolent
spirits that for want of hope and prospect of success have been
long dormant, and have now taken this favourable opportunity,
as they think it, to break forth : but with you it lies, and in
your power it is, to disperse these hopes as fast as they gather,
and to render that assistance ineflectual with which the rage,
malevolence, disappointment, and revenge of some deserters
from your cause have furnished these common enemies of this
party, this country, and this establishment.

" I have often borne the reproach of many here present for
having been instrumental in opening the spring to all the dis-
turbances that have for some years last past overflowed this king-
dom— ^I mean, for contributing to the restoration of one [Boling-
broke] who has made the lenity, indulgence, and mercy of this
country the means of working its disquiet, if not its destruction ;
who has returned such evil for the good he has received, that
nothing less will content him than the ruin of those who prevented
his, by softening the justice of an offended nation into mercy,
and by converting its wrath into forgiveness. At the time that
I contributed to this step taken by Parliament, matters were so
circumstanced that the thing was unavoidable ; I will not by a
fruitless retrospect prove to you now, Gentlemen, that it was
so ; but give me leave to say so much in mitigation of this much
repented faiUt of mine — so much in excuse of the share and part

1733. WALPOLE'S SPEECH. 221

I had in this meafiure ; that my reason for submitting to it was,
that I did not then believe it was possible for any individual in
human nature to be entirely devoid of all shame, truth, or gra-
titude, and unless the man I mean, and whom I need not name,
had been so, and proved himself so, the consequences that have
followed from this error committed at that time in his favour
could never have happened. But let not those by whom I am
blamed on this head be so inconsistent with themselves as to
lodge additional power in those hands which have already abused
the favour of their former benefactors ; and do not you blindly
and inconsistently contribute now to let the Legislature by proxy
receive laws from him, whose crimes have made you divest him
of that share which the Crown once thought fit to give him in
all the deliberations of Parliament.

^' I need say no more, I believe, to induce you to reject a
list of his nomination ; and all I will add in commendation of
this now put into your hands is, that to execute the purpose
mentioned in the Resolution no men can be fitter than your own
friends. That the twenty-one here named are no more fit for
this distinction than every one of those to whom I am speaking,
I readily allow ; that you are all equally worthy of having your
names there, is certain ; but since it is necessary, by the nature
and circumstances of this affair, that only twenty-one should be
selected^ and that the success of the whole depends on your
unanimity on this occasion, I do hope and desire that none
upon any motive whatever will garble this list, or alter any
name in it, but that you will all be firm, true, zealous, and
unanimous.'*

This speech had so good an effect on those to whom
it was addressed, that for two or three days there seemed
to be a resurrection of that party spirit which had so
long been dormant, that most people imagined it was
quite extinct ; and the next day in the House, where
the industry of both parties had contributed to bring
above fiive hundred members, the Court list was carried

222 LORD HERVBT'S MEMOIRS. Chap. X.

by a majority of ninety/* most of the lists on both sides
being entire.

This was the decisive and final stroke in the House of
Commons this Session, for the day after this ballot^
stsruggle was over most of the members decamped into
the comitry.

However, as there had been a strong party made
against the ministry in the House of Lords, in case the
Excise Bill had come there, those who had been at the
trouble of working this defection, since they were disap-
pointed of showing their strength and the good effects of
their cabals on that occasion, began to look out for some
other point to squabble upon.

An inquiry into the state of the South Sea Company
was the subject chosen, and the reason of its being chosen
was Lord Scarborough's having declared the last year
that as there were great murmurs in the world against
those who had been concerned in the management of
the great moneyed companies, and doubts arising in the
minds of the proprietors with regard to the value of
their property there ; that in order to ease those doubts,
to quiet the clamours, and let people know what they
had to depend upon, whenever a scrutiny of these matters
should be proposed by Parliament, he should be strenu-
ously for it, and if any fraud was proved on those who
had been intrusted with the management of any of
these companies, that no one should go farther than
he would towards the punishment of such delinquents

IS The highest name on the Court list had 294 votes, and the highest on
the Opposition 209. 18 of the Opposition and only 10 of the Courtiers
varied any name in the lists.

1733. SOtJTH SEA COMPANY. 223

and procuring satisfaction to those who had been de-
frauded.

This declaration was casually and digressiyely thrown
out by Lord Scarborou^ when the affair of the
Charitable Corporation was under consideration the year
before; but it was too explicit not to pin him down
when anything of this nature should be proposed, to be
for it

The true and short state of this Company was this:—
The annual ship, trading to the South Seas by virtue of
the treaty with Spain, was, by that treaty, confined to
be of a measure not exceeding 500 tons; whatever,
therefore, she carried beyond that measure was an in*
fraction of the treaty and forfeiture of the privilege
allowed by it But as the Directors of the South Sea
Company found means to evade this treaty by carrying
on a clandestine and illicit trade, so they cheated Spain
by carrying merchandise and effects to a greater weight
than they had a right to do by treaty ; and they cheated
the Company by selling the goods of their own private
trade first, and leaving those of the Company to be dis-
posed of at any price that could be got for them after
the best of the market was over. Besides this, if any
goods were damaged, or any were left unsold, or if any
loss whatever was sustained, it was always put to the
account of the Company, by which means the Company
was never any year the better and was often the worse
for having any trade thither at alL

This was so great a hardship upon the proprietors of
the 16,000,000i of South Sea stock (for that was their
capital), that it was not wonderfiil they should complain.
The reason the ministry gave for opposing inquiry into

224 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. X.

the affairs of the Company (though they did not pretend
to be ignorant of the facts) was, that though a scrutiny
of this nature might be a private benefit to the proprie-
tors of the stock, yet it would be a national loss, and
consequently that it was not advisable for the legislature
to unveil all this scene of mingled iniquity, but to let
their national policy prevail over their personal justice,
and permit a set of annual rascals to cheat the Company
without being punished, in order to let England cheat
Spain without being discovered.

But besides this particular reason Sir Robert Walpole
had another general one (and the weakest part of his
character and policy in my opinion), which was on all
occasions, let the wrong be never so extensive, or the
circumstances of it never so flagrant, to oppose aU Par-
liamentary inquiries. He pursued this maxim from a
fear of making this retrospective manner of inquiry, by
the frequency of it, so femiliar to Parliament, that one
time or other it might, in any reverse of fortune and by
the rage of party, affect himself his family, and pos-
terity ; but by too strict an adherence to this principle
he was often smeared with the filth of other people, and
gave his enemies occasion to say that whoever had a
mind to plimder the public or defraud particulars, they
had but to keep out of the reach of the slow, uncertain
hands of Westminster Hall, and let the notoriety of
their crimes be never so manifest or the nature of them
never so enormous, they would be secure of protection
in Parliament whilst Sir Robert Walpole had any power
there. His conduct in the affair of the Charitable Cor-
poration, his opposition to a Bill for vacating the fraudu-
lent sale of Lord Derwentwater's estate (by which the

1783. SOUTH SEA DIRECTORS. 225

trustees for the sale of forfeited estates had cheated the
public of an immense sum and by acting in flat contra-
diction to an Act of Parliament) ; his doing all he could
to prevent the Parliament taking cognizance of the
frauds committed by the Directors of the York Build-
ings Company, and his having actually put a stop to this
inquiry into the South Sea affairs in the House of
Commons, had given but too just grounds for these
reflections to be thrown out against him, and left his
friends too little room to justify him when his adver-
saries represented him as the universal encourager of
corruption and the sanctuary of the corrupt

But all his power was not sufficient to prevent this
inquiry in the House of Lords. In the first place the
objections against a general inquiry for prudential rea-
sons with regard to Spain were of no weight to stop the
inquiry now proposed by the House of Lords, because
the clandestine trade carried on by the Directors in the
annual ship was not the point the Lords proposed to go
upon. The inquiry they proposed was to see in what
manner the money arising from the sale of the forfeited
estates of the South Sea Directors in 1720 had been
disposed of; and whether the trustees, in the disposition
they had made of it, had observed the rules prescribed
by that Act of Parliament that gave the produce of
these estates to the proprietors of the South Sea stock.
In the next place, this objection being removed, the
curiosity of mankind, the natural propensity of Parlia-
ments to inquiry, and the defection on the Excise
scheme, and the pride of the young Lords, who had
heard their whole body so long treated as ciphers, all
combined to strengthen the party for going into this

VOL. I. Q

226 LORD HBRVBYS MEMOIRS. Chap. X,

business, and filled the nets that had been spread by the
opponents to catch these deserters; among which, be-
sides those I have already mentioned, were — the Duke of
St Alban's, one of the weakest men either of the legiti-
mate or spurious brood of Stuarts ; the Duke of Man-
chester, one as like him in his degree of understanding
as of quality ; Lord Pomfret, Master of the Horse, who
pretended to be guided by his conscience in voting on
an account he did not understand ; Lord Falmouth, a
blundering blockhead, who, in the two most material
questions in this affair, spoke on one side and voted on
the other, which gave occasion to some laughers to say
that Lord Falmouth was determined to do the ministers
all the hurt he could, for he spoke for them and voted
against them; Lord Onslow ditto; and the Duke of
Kent, who had been a Yes-and-No hireling to a Court
for forty years, and took it into his head at threescore to
turn patriot There were more, but none either of note
or of any more consideration than all other ciphers are,
which, though ciphers, increase materially every number
to which they are added.

One other considerable deserter there was (whom I
had almost foi^ot to mention), who became such on
the disposal of Lord Ghesterfield*s staff to the Duke of
Devonshire — this was Lord Burlington, then Captain of
the Band of Pensioners, who, having solicited the
Steward's stafl^ and being refiised it, threw up his own
together with the Lieutenancy of Yorkshire and Vice-
Treasurership of Ireland, and listed himself immediately
in the Opposition. It was at first reported about town
that Lord Burlington declared his resignation did not
proceed from any dislike to the measures of the Adminis-

1733. LOBD AND LADY BURLINGTON. 227

tration, or any quarrel with the ministers, but that his sole
objection was to the King, who had told him a lie and
broke his word, having promised him the first white staff
that should be vacant, and yet given this to the Duke
of Devonshire. The fact, I believe, was that the King,
on giving Lord Burlington the Pensioners' stafl^ had
said he hoped soon to put one into his hand that would
be better worth his acceptance, which compliment Lord
Burlington understood, or pretended to understand, as
an absolute promise of the next white staff that should
fall, and for the non-performance of this supposed pro*
mise he quitted the King's service ; but though in great
wrath he threw up all his own employments, yet he
suffered his wife^^ (who was Lady of the Bed-chamber to
the Queen) still to keep hers, which made his con-
duct doubly simple, the first folly being to quit his own
post without juster offence, and the second, when the
first was committed, to let my Lady retain hers. Her
desiring to do so did not proceed fi'om too little pride,
or the weakness of her resentment of her Lord's usage,
but from a stronger passion of another kind : she liked
the Duke of Grafton, and had she left the Queen she
must have left her lover, or at least have lost many
favourable opportunities which her employment gave
her of seeing him and which her own ingenuity more
than her lover's assiduity always improved. My Lady,
therefore, choosing rather to mortify her pride than her
inclination and sacrificing the great lady to the woman,
consulted her heart and not her character, her lover and
not her husband in this difficulty, and whilst she laud-
is Dorothy Saville, daughter and co-heiress of the last Marquis of Ha-
lifax.

q2

228 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOmS. Chap. X.

ably in reality gave up everything to her passion, she
seemed so meanly to have considered only her pin-
money and her interest.

When the Duke of Devonshire was made Lord
Steward, Lord Lonsdale^* succeeded him in the employ-
ment of Privy Seal, which was a great mortification to
all the Opposition, who had always reverenced Lord
Lonsdale as a sort of political idol, and looking upon
him as their own, had always spoken of him as a man of
such rigid virtue and so true a judgment, that whatever
measures he abetted he must approve, and whatever he
approved must be right. He was certainly an honest
and a sensible man ; but his integrity inclined him now
and then to be whimsical, and his understanding to be
rather too disputative.

1< *^ Henry Lowther, last Yiscount Lonsdale of the first creation, was
made Constable of the Tower and Lord Privy Seal, which he resigned
without going into Opposition. He was of very conscientious and dis-
interested honour — a great disputer — a great refiner — and a great genius."
— -ff. Walpole, ?

f

yi^
N-

1733. QTTEEN AND HOABLET. 229

CHAPTER XL

Efforts of the Court to obtain a Majority in the Peers — The Queen and
Bishop Hoadlej — Marriage of Princess Royal — Portrait of the Prince of
Orange — Dissatisfaction of the Prince of Wales — Defeat of Ministers in
the Lords on the South Sea affur— The Opposition go too far — Are
checked, and sign ofienave Protests — Lord Hervej called to the House
of Peers — ^The Session closes, and the Court goes out of Town.

Between the time when it was debated whether the
House of Lords should call for papers and enter at all
into the examination of the state of the South Sea Com-
pany, and the day fixed for the taking this matter into
consideration, many Lords were closeted, schooled, and
tampered with by the ministers, some by the King and
more by the Queen. Among the latter was Hoadley,
Bishop of Salisbury, whom she had sent for merely on
suspicion, for he had never left the Court in any one
vote, nor altered his public conduct, whatever he might
have done in his private conversation. She told him that
his enemies had been suggesting at St. James's that his
afiection for those for whom he used to profess the
warmest attachment was quite changed, and that he had
disapproved of ever5i;hing that had been done lately, but
particularly the Excise scheme ; that he had been very
slack in his attendance in the House of Lords this
winter, and that most people talked of him as one whom
the opponents expected every day to declare himself of
the number of deserters. But as she was determined
never to believe so improbable a story merely on the

230 LORD HERTBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. ZI.

credit of Court whispers, and that she thought the best
way for people who wished and meant well to one
another was always to have such misunderstandings ex-
plained before they gathered strength enough from
repetition to grow into distrusts^ so she had sent for him
to let him know what she had heard, what many said,
and what some believed.

The Bishop told her Majesty that he was extremely
surprised and not less concerned to find it was possible
for her to have given so much regard to such groundless
and malicious insinuations as to think they wanted any
fiirther contradiction than their own improbability, or to
imagine that after so many years spent in the service of
her Majesty's family, and what was called the Whig
cause, he should think it either for his credit or his
interest in the close of his life to desert principles and
men whom, in the most difficult times, he had always
stood by and supported, manifestly against his interest
on some occasions, and, if scandal and reproach* can
hurt a character, as much to the hazard of his reputation
on others. He said if ever he had taken anything ill of
Sir Robert Walpole, he could assure her Majesty he
thought it would be convincing the world he had de^
served to be neglected and ill-used by him, if he were
capable of forgetting all the former obligations he had
had to him, because Sir Robert had not added another
to which, perhaps, he might think he had had some
title ;^ he further added, that he thought Sir Robert
Walpole the ablest and best minister the King could
employ, and that, directly or indirectly, he had never

1 Alluding to the disposal of Durham, an/«, p. 147.

1783. QUEEN AND HOADLEY. 231

had the least correspondence with any one of those who
were thought to be his rivals for power ; that he had no
opinion of their capacity, no esteem for their principles,
and was far from approving of their conduct; that as
to the Excise scheme, he always had and always should
declare that he thought it a right one, intended for the
good of the nation, and what would have proved so
could it have been put into execution, but considering
the light in which it had been represented to the people
and in which they saw it, he had often wished that it
had been dropped sooner; that Lord Hervey (with
whom he had often spoken on this subject) cotdd witness
these to have been his sentiments, and to him he
appealed for the truth of what he had now told her
Majesty.

" Lord Hervey (the Queen said) is extremely your
friend, and speaks of you always with the greatest
esteem ; but on this subject I have not yet talked with
him, and I assure you it was not by Sir Robert Walpole
I was told anything I have now said to you." The
Bishop said, ^^ I wish, then, your Majesty would have
taken my justification from Sir Robert, since he was not
my accuser ; for Sir Robert must know that if I were
knave enough to desire to bely all my professions and
run counter to all my former conduct, I must be the
weakest as well as the worst of mankind to throw myself
now into the arms of a party to whom I must know I
am not less obnoxious than he himself and from whom
I neither desire any favour nor can expect any quarter ;
and for my attendance in Parliament, he could have
told your Majesty likewise that it has been as constant
this year as any other of my life, though, from a very

232 LORD HEBVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XI.

bad state of health, no year of my life I liave been less
able to bear it" The Queen said she was extremely
glad to hear this from his own mouth, for though she
was too well acquainted with his worth to believe any-
thing lightly to his disadvantage, "yet" (said she) "you
know one is sometimes brought by one*s own weakness
and other people's wickedness to entertain suspicion of
one's friends, which, in reason and justice, perhaps, one
ought never to have given ear to/'

The Bishop of Salisbury dined at Lord Hervey's
lodgings the day after this conference, related it to him,
and complained of Sir Kobert Walpole, who undoubt-
edly, he said, had put the Queen upon talking to him in
this manner, though she denied it ; but he desired Lord
Hervey to tell Sir Kobert that he thought leaving any
man or any party by whom one had been obliged, merely
for not being more obliged, was so pitiful and dishonour-
able a part, that he might depend on him for any service
he could do him as securely as ever, and that the more
Sir Bobert was pressed by his enemies and the harder
things bore upon him, the surer he might be of any
assistance he could give him.

Sir Bobert Walpole went to see the Bishop soon after
this, but behaved, as the Bishop told Lord Hervey, with
a shyness, a coldness, and a reserve that he had never
had about him till after the Durham affair, and which
from the time of that incident he had never been with-
out.

It was in this interval, before the South Sea debate
came on in the House of Lords, that the King com-
municated by a message to both Houses the intended
marriage of his eldest dau^ter, the Princess Boyal, to

1783. THE PRINCE OF ORANGE. 233

the Prince of Orange — a miserable match both in point
of man and fortune, his figure being deformed* and his
estate not clear 12,000iL a-year. It was, indeed,
nominally double that, but the debts with which it was
encumbered and other drawbacks reduced it to what I
say. The turn, therefore, which good courtiers gave to
this match, and which good subjects believed to be the
case, was, that the father, for the sake of this country,
and the daughter, to ingratiate herself with the people,
had consented to take up with this marriage to strengthen
on contingencies the Protestant succession to this crown,
and renew an alliance with a family and a name always
dear to this nation — an alliance from which this nation
had formerly received many benefits, and from which it
would not now be liable to incur those disadvantages
which, if ever the crown should be this Princess's
inheritance, might attend her being married to a
greater prince, who shotdd have larger territories of his
own.

This sounded so well, (ihat these fictitious merits were
most eloquently displayed by all who spoke on this
subject, either in the House of Lords or Commons, in
order to make the fortune it was expected the Parlia-
ment should give, come so much the easier; but the
true reason for this match was, that there was, indeed^
no other for the Princess in all Europe, so that her
Boyal Highness's option was not between this Prince
and any other, but between a husband and no husband
— ^between an indifferent settlement and no settlement
at all ; and whether she would be wedded to this piece

* See post, p. 273.

234 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XI.

of deformity in Holland, or die an ancient maid im-
mured in her royal convent at St. James's.

On one side, her pride made her often reflect on the
parting with her guards, and several other abatements
of state consequential to this match; on the other, she
was to consider, whenever her father died, what a dis-
agreeable situation she would be in, dependent on her
brother's bounty for a maintenance, and exposed to the
mercy of a sister-in-law, who, she knew from her bro-
ther's weakness, could not fail of being both his mistress
and hera These considerations led her to that deter-
mination which, grounded on private and personal
reasons, was to wear the countenance of national and
popular motives, whilst the good people of England
were to express their gratitude for what was no obliga-
tion, and to extol that conduct as an heroic sacrifice to
their interest, which was in reality a well-weighed con-
sultation and prudential concern for her own.

The fortune given her by Parliament was 80,000/.,
which, like her mother's jointure, and not very unlike
her father's Civil List, was just double what had ever
before been given on the like occasion. There was
upwards of that sum at this time lying in the Exchequer,
arising from the sale of St Christopher's,* and unappro-
priated by Parliament, which facilitated this generosity
— the public on this occasion resembling some particulars
who are much more willing to give out of their
stewards' hands than out of their own pockets, and
ready enbugh to assign what they do not see, though
they cannot part with what they do.

s Sale of lands in the Island of St. Christopher's.

1788. PKINCESS ROYAL. 235

The Prince of Orange's figure, besides his being
almost a dwar^ was as much deformed as it was possible
for a human creature to be ; his face was not bad, his
countenance was sensible, but his breath more offensive
than it is possible for those who have not been offended
by it to imagine. These personal defects, unrecom*
pensed by the Sdat of rank or the more essential com-
forts of great riches, made the situation of the poor
Princess Boyal so much more commiserable ; for as
her youth and an excellent warm animated constitution
made her, I believe, now and then remember she was a
woman, so I can answer for her that natural and ac-
quired pride seldom or never let her foi^et she was a
Princess; and as this match gave her little hope of
gratifying the one, so it afforded as little prospect of
supporting the other.

There is one of two inconveniences that generally
attends most marris^es : the one is sacrificing all con-
sideration of interest and grandeur for the sake of
beauty and an agreeable person ; and the other, that of
sacrificing all consideration of beauty and person to
interest and grandeur. But this match most unfortu-
nately conciliated the inconveniences of both these
methods of marrying, and consequently without the ad-
vantages of either; however, as she apprehended the
consequences of not being married at all must one time
or other be worse than even the being so married, she
very prudently submitted to the present evil to avoid a
greater in futurity.

The Princess Royal's personal beauties were a lively
clean look and a very fine complexion, though she was
marked a good deal with the small-pox ; the faults of

236 LOKD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XI.

her person were that of being very ill made and a
great propensity to fat

As those who had now the ear of the Prince of
Wales lost no opportunity to irritate and blow him up
against his father/ so this marriage gave them occasion
to make his Boyal Highness think it very hard that the
first establishment provided by Parliament for one of
the Royal progeny should be for any but the heir-
apparent to the Crown. He was so very uneasy, that
to everybody his looks told he was so, and to many his
words.

The day the message was brought to both Houses it
was whispered about that some fiiend to the Prince or
enemy to the King would take this opportunity of
making a proposal in the House of Commons to address
his Majesty for the settlement of 100,000?. a-year to be
made on the Prince, which, at the time the Civil List
was given, everybody understood and had taken for
granted was designed to be done as soon as he should
come over; but nobody, when it came to the push,
being either zealous enough for the service of the son,
or desperate enough with the father to care to begin
it, there was not the least mention made of this measure

4 We are nowhere told, that I know of, what the original cause of differ-
ence was between George II. and Frederick Prince of VTales. It arose
perhaps in some degree from the bad example given by George II. him-
self when Prince of Wales. Frederick was brought late, and on his
father*s part reluctantly, to England. There he fell into the hands of
Opposition — always ready to speculate on the favour of heirs-apparent — and
the King's displeasure, whatever was its original cause, would have been
naturally and justly increased, if the story that Horace Walpole tells be
true, that shortly after the Prince's coming over he was about to have
secretly and suddenly married Lady Diana Spencer — a plot of her grand-
mother the old Duchess of Marlborough, which Sir Robert Walpole dis-
covered in time to prevent.

1738. SOUTH SEA AFFAIRS. 237

in public, though it had been so much discoursed of in
private. Nor was it in the least to be wondered at that
this project should never be brought to execution : in
the first place, because the danger every one ran of
being betrayed who entered into any negotiation with
his Boyal Highness, made few people care to begin one ;
and, in the next place, because the instability of his
conduct and the contempt that attended his character
made him so little worth getting, that no wise or pru-
dent man cared to run any risk for an acquisition that
was likely to prove of so small a value and so short a
duration.

When the great day \24th May^ for the debate on the
South Sea affair came on in the House of Lords, the num-
bers in the first division were equal [75] ; but the debate
being on a previous question, whether a question of the
Duke of Newcastle's should be then put, and the rule of
the House in that case h&m% presumitur pro negante,
this equality proved in effect a decision against the Court.
The Queen seemed much more concerned at this de-
fection and rebellion in the House of Lords than the
King, and Sir Robert more so than either of them.
The part he had to act was a very delicate and dis-
agreeable one, for he knew the fatal consequences of
such mutiny if unpunished, and yet was forced to be
tender of urging to the King the necessity of fiirther
punishment, because he did not care to represent this
defeat to him in so strong a light as that in which he
saw it himself Had he owned to the King that this
was a point of that importance to the Ministry which he
thought it, it is possible that the King's seeing a ques-
tion so laboured as the Excise had been, go against his

238 LOED HKRVErS MEMOIRS. Chap. XI.

Minister in the House of Commons, and this inquiry in
spite of him brought into the House of Lords, might
have made his Majesty ims^ne that Sir Robert's in*
terest ran too weak in these two material assemblies to
be long sustained. To the King, therefore, he treated
this incident as a trifle, saying that it was of no import*
ance to the Court which way it went ; and that, as to
the revoUerSy he knew the reasons and the price of every
one of them ; * but that the one was not worth consider*
ing, nor the other worth paying.

The truth was, Sir Robert made this a point of im*
portance by meddling with it at all, for had he let it
take its course, the Court or the Ministry could have
been no way affected by it ; but his having once shown
a desire to keep it ofl^ that alone made it necessary for
him, if he could, to have done it.

But after this victory over him in the South Sea
inquiry the opposing Lords fell into just the same error
that the opposing Commoners had done in the case of
the Excise Bill ; for, not content with their first con-
quest, they aimed at extending it, and by that means lost
part of the ground they had gained : they never carried
a question after the first day, and by seasoning every
one stronger and stronger, their numbers grew weaker
and weaker, till on the last question [2d June']^ which
was for appointing a joint committee of further inquiry
into the South Sea Company's affairs, composed of
twelve Lords and twenty-four Commoners, to be chosen

& This seems to corroborate an explanation of Horace Walpole's : — '< It
has been reported that Sir Robert Walpole had so bad an opinion of man-
kind, as to have said ' AU men have their price,'' This is not the fact : what
he said was, *A11 these men have their price,' alluding to a particular
case.*' — WalpcHana,

179S. LORDS* PROTEST. 239

by ballot and to sit during the recess of Parliament, the
desertion of the deserters was so great that they did not
dare to stand a division. • However, they protested,
and in so strong a manner, that it was hardly possible
for words to make up a more severe invective on those
who had opposed the appointment of this committee ;
but I believe it was the first instance on the books
where a minority has been suffered in such plain terms
to call a majority *^ a pack of ignorant corrupt slaves to
an ignorant corrupt minister."

The two last articles of this protest were so very
extraordinary, that I cannot help transcribing them : —

^^ Because the arts made use of to divert us from our duty
and defeat this inquiry give us reasons to prosecute it with
double vigour. For impunity of guilt (if any such there is) is
the strongest encouragement to the repetition of the same prac-
tices in ftiture times, by chalking out a safe method of com-
mitting the most flagitious frauds under the protection of some
corrupt and all-screening minister."

^^ For these reasons we think ourselves under an indispen-
sable obligation to vindicate our own honour, by leaving our
testimonies in the Journals of this House, that we are not under
the influence of any man whatsoever, whose safety may depend
on the protection of fraud and corruption, and that we entered
upon this inquiry with a sincere and just design of going to the
bottom of the evil, and applying to it the most proper and
effectual remedies."'

A resolution was once taken to expunge this protest,
but Sir Bobert declaring he had rather expunge the
protesters, and most people being of opinion that imless
the expunction could be carried by a great majority,

0 It is stated in the Journab that there was a division, 76 to 70.
7 It was signed by twenty-two peers, including most of those mentioned
in the preceding pages as deserters.

240 LORI) HERYErS MEMOIRS. Chap. XI.

the protest had better remain, this resolution was laid
aside : had it been prosecuted, it would have certainly-
drawn them into new inconveniences ; for the present
temper and disposition of the House would not have
permitted the Court to execute this design with a high
hand ; and had it been executed at all, it would not only
have contributed to make the fame of it spread still
wider, but given occasion to the entry of a second pro-
test against the expunction, in which the first would
have been recited, and which Lord Carteret (who drew
ihe other) had declared he had ready to insert, and con-
ceived in much stronger terms than its predecessor : so
that the measure of expimction, besides prolonging the
life of the thing it was intended to destroy, would have
helped it to generate and produce an oflfepring yet more
oflensive than tiie parent.

This privilege of protesting with reasons is one which
the Lords seem proud and fond o^ but. of all Parlia-
mentary privileges, forms, customs, or institutions, it
seems to me the most unaccountable and absurd, as it
must always carry along with it a censiu^e on the con-
duct of the majority of the House, and is generally
nothing more than an authorised libel on the people
then in power : by which means, if protests have any
effect on posterity, they must have a bad one, supposing
it to be of any consequence what ftiture times think of
the equity or wisdom of the former ; for as they always
urge the strongest reasons against what is done, without
ever being compared with those on the other side, they
must make every one in futurity who is unacquainted
with the motives of the legislature for the laws they
enacted, imagine they either did not understand the

1733. DISMISSALS. 241

interests of their country, or, from some mean corrupt
views, sacrificed it to their own.

When the political day of judgment came for the
disposition of rewards and punishments at the end of
this Session, the signing this protest was looked upon as
the sin which was not to be forgiven; accordingly,
therefore, the Duke of Montrose and Lord Marchmont
and Lord Cobham, the only three still left in employ-
ment who had been guilty of this irremissible sin, re-
ceived letters of dismission the day after the Parliament
rose. As Lord Cobham had nothing but his regiment
that could be taken from him (his government of Jersey
being for life), his disgrace made much more noise than
that of lie other two. Lord Stair's regiment was not
taken, for two reasons : in the first place^ because they
had already divested him of the employment of Ad-
miral of Scotland ; and, in the next place, because with-
out his regin^^nt he must have starved ; so that besides
doubling the popular clamour upon breaking old officers
for voting in Parliament (which was never approved
of), the Court would have incurred the further odium
of carrying their resentment to the utter ruin of those
who had disobliged them, and, of course, drawn on the
reproaches of all that numerous class among mankind
who are always readiest to show their compassion to the
oppressed by railing at the oppressor, and find a much
greater pleasure in loading the one with reproaches than
they would in administering relief to the other.

A little before the Parliament rose Sir Robert Wal-
pole came to Lord Hervey and said he had so much
business upon his hands that he begged of him to draw
up a speech for the King to conclude the Session : Lord

VOL. I. R

242 LORD HERVEyS MEMOIRS. Chap. XI.

Hervey did so.® But Sir Robert told him that this
speech was full of douceurs to the Parliament, which he
thought they did not deserve, and such as he was sure
the King (though he were to be advised to it) would
never consent to bestow upon them ; and as to the con-
clusion, that flattery to the people (he said) was what
the King at this time would as little submit to as the
other. Lord Hervey said Sir Robert was a much
better judge than he could pretend to be, either of what
the King would do or what he ought to do ; but that
for his part he did not think these were times for any
good to be expected from the King's huffing his Parlia-
ment or seeming out of humour with them ; and that as
to the people, considering the notions that had been
infused into their minds, of the double attack made on
their liberties by a standing army and the Excise, and
considering the deep and general impression these sug-
gestions had made on the minds of the people, that the
King could not be too explicit in declaring all these
su^estions entirely false and groundless, and that he
was too careful of their interest and too sensible of his
own ever to entertain a thought of ruling them but by
the known and ancient laws of the Constitution.

Lord Hervey further added that if such sweetening
declarations and little verbal cajoleries were ever ex-
pedient and proper to be made from the Throne to the

8 Lord Hervey had here giyen in his MS. hU project as well as the
speech actually delivered : the former, which is very long, is hardly worth
copying; it concluded with some commonplaces about "the liberties of
the people being inseparable from the grandeur of the Sovereign," and, on
the whole, only proves, notwithstanding Lord Hervey*s paternal partiality
for his own performance, that Sir Robert Walpole was in eveiy way a much
better writer of king's speeches than Lord Hervey.

1733. KINGS SPEECH. 243

people, they never could be more so than at present ;
and that though the King might be wrong-headed
enough to feel a little reluctance from his pride to make
such professions to his subjects, or think at first that it
was bending too much or letting down his grandeur,
yet he thought it would be very easy to show him that
such sort of condescension might often contribute to
advance the interest and strengthen the authority of the
Crown by putting the people in good humour ; whereas
it being nothing more than the transient show of conde*
scension, it could no more really cheapen his dignity
than it could essentially hurt his prerogative.

Sir Robert, however, would not take this advice ; the
indignities that had lately been offered to him all over
the kingdom, made him have a mind to draw the King
in to show some resentment of them, and declare him-
self so little satisfied with this conduct, that he was not
better pleased with his people than his people seemed
to be with his Minister. He, therefore, drew up another
speech, which the King spoke on the 1 1th of Jime, and
was as follows : —

" My Lords and Geittlemen, — The season of the year
and the dispatch you have given to the public business make it
proper for me to put an end to this Session of Parliament.

" Gentlemen of the House of Commons, — I return you
my thanks for the provisions you have made for the service of
the present year. I have never demanded any supplies of my
people, but what were absolutely necessary for Ihe honour,
safety, and defence of me and my kingdom, and I am always
best pleased when the public expenses are supplied in a manner
least burdensome to my subjects.

^^ Mt Lords and Gentlemen, — I cannot pass by unob-
served the wicked endeavours that have lately been made use

r2

244 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XI*

of to inflame the minds of the people, and by the most unjust
representations to raise tumults and disorders that almost
threatened the peace of the kingdom ; but I depend upon the
force of truth to remove the groundless jealousies that have
been raised of designs carrying on against the liberties of my
people, and upon your known fidelity to defeat and frustrate
the expectations of such as delight in confusion. It is my in-
clination, and has always been my study, to preserve the reli-
gious and civil rights of all my subjects ; let it be your care to
undeceive the deluded, and to make them sensible of their pre-
sent happiness, and the hazard they run of being unwarily
drawn by specious pretences into their own destruction."

Just before the Parliament rose Lord Hervey v^as
called up by writ to the House of Peers [9th June\^
where there was so great a want of speakers, that the
Court determined to make a recruit by next winter and
began with this. Lord Cholmondely (formerly Lord
Malpas), who was just come into the House of Lords by
the death of his father, and was so vain as to think that
the side on which he fought could want no reinforcement,
did all he could to obstruct this promotion; and the
Duke of Newcastle, who was simple enough not to be
able to bear the receiving an assistance which the whole
world knew he was simple enough to want, joined with
Lord Cholmondely in this opposition ; but Lord Her-
vey's interest at Court was at present too good for this
point to be carried against him ; for as the King and
Queen had both a mind to have him in the House of
Lords, and that Sir Robert had proposed it first to
Lord Hervey without being solicited by him, it was
impossible for Sir Robert, if he had been inclined to it,
to go back. Besides, as Lord Hervey's pride and
vanity were fed with the air of being called out of the

1738. LORD HERVET CALLED UP. 245

whole House of Commons upon this occasion, and as
he had a mind to strengthen the interest of his family
in Parliament by bringmg one of his brothers into his
place [at Bury], so he embraced this offer with too much
readiness, and pushed the immediate execution of it with /
too much warmth, for the envy or ill-wiU of his adver- /
saries to be able to stop it.^ /

The day before the Parliament rose [12^A June] the
three vacant Garters were given to the Prince of Orange,
the Duke of Devonshire, and Lord Wilmington, and the
day after it rose the Court went for a month to Rich-
mond, where the King and Queen were always so much
in private (and indeed the House would not allow them
to be much in public) that they saw nobody but their
servants.

From hence they went to Hampton Court, and soon
after they came there the Duke of Bolton was dis-
missed from all his employments.**^ In the Government
of the Isle of Wight he was succeeded by the Duke of

* This was a sudden resolution, not communicated to Lord Bristol, who
had a strong feeling against Walpole and his administration, and, notwith-
standing his general indulgence for, and admiration of Lord Heryej, disap-
proved this step. '' As I am" (he writes from Ick worth 9th June, 1733)
" a stranger to the many secret motives which must have influenced your
choice so suddenly to exchange the important house you was a member of
for so insignificant a one as your friend and you have endeavoured to make
that you are to be translated to, I will not take upon me to determine
whether it was on the whole well judged or not." Lord Bristol intimates
his opinion that Lord Hervey, instead of submitting to be *' kicked up
stairs" should have had efficient office as a reward for the ability and zeal
he had shown in the late arduous session.

10 From a regiment of dragoons (given to the Duke of Argyll) ; the
Lord-Lieutenancy of Hampshire (given to Lord Lymington) ; and the
Government of the Isle of Wight. The dismissal of his Grace and Lord
Cobham from their regiments made a great outcry. The great Lord
Chatham was similarly dismissed from a cometcy in 1736.

t

246 LOKD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XI.

Montague, a man of little more consequence than his
being a Duke, who had been long wavering between the
Court and the Opposition, and took this opportunity to
sell himself for ftdl as much as he was worth, by getting
the income of this employment increased to 1500Z. a-
year.**

ii There is here some erasure in the MS., and a page or two seems
wanting* From the few words visible, it seems to have related to the
increasing ** coldness between the Prince and his parents," of which we
shall see enough hereafter. j

1733. AFFAIRS OF POLAIO). 247

CHAPTER XII.

Affiiira of Poland — ^Rival clidms of the Elector of Saxony and Stanislaus
Leczinski — ^The Emperor and the Czarina support the former, Eranoe
the latter — Stanislaus elected by intrigue and violence — ^Approved by
Lord Hervey and Walpole, but distasteful to the King and Newcastle —
Stanislaus expelled, and Augustus elected — War between France and the
Emperor — ^Treaty between France and Savoy — Opinion of George II.
on it — ^The French seize Lomune — Royal Hunting — ^Lord Hervey's
intercourse and conversation with the King and Queen — ^Advocates
neutrality : so does Walpole — Negotiation in London between the Em-
peror and Spain — Delays of the Emperor — Spain concludes with France
~The Emperor loses Italy.

The competitors for the crown of Poland, upon the
demise of King Augustus [1 Feb^ 1733], were the
Elector of Saxony [Frederic Augustus], son to the late
King, and Stanislaus Leczinski, father to the Queen of
France. Stanislaus had been formerly made King of
Poland by Charles XII. of Sweden, when that madman
deposed King Augustus, and, after the defeat of the
King of Sweden, had been himself deposed by King
Augustus, who again regained the crown of Poland and
died in possession of it

The Emperor [Charles VI.] on this occasion op-
posed the party of Stanislaus, and espoused that of the
Elector of Saxony, for a double reason : the one was,
to prevent France from having any interest in so near
and powerful a neighbour ; and the other, his desiring
to set a Prince on the throne of Poland who would

248 LOBD HERTETS MEMOIRS. Cuav. XU.

enter into the guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction/
and this the Elector of Saxony had promised to do,
though he had married one of the daughters of the
Emperor Joseph, and consequently gave away by this
guarantee all the right his wife might pretend to any
share of the Austrian dominions; and as she was
daughter to the elder brother of the present Emperor,
her claim and that of the Electress of Bavaria, her
younger and only sister, were certainly the strongest
that could be pleaded in bar to the undivided suc-
cession of the eldest daughter to the present Emperor,
on whom all that great inheritance, by this settlement
of the Pragmatic Sanction, was to fall.

The Czarina joined with the Emperor in concerting
measures to defeat the pretensions of Stanislaus and
promote those of the Elector of Saxony. The interest
Muscovy had in preventing Stanislaus from reascending
the throne was for fear, as Sweden had formerly made
him King, he might be inclined, or think himself in
gratitude obliged, as soon as he became so again, to
assist the Swedes in recovering what the Muscovites
had taken from them by conquest and still retained,
particularly Livonia^ which was the loss under which
they were the most impatient.

France had no other interest in this affair than the
glory of presiding in it, increasing the grandeur of the
father-in-law to her own King, and establishing a
monarch in Poland, who, by the ties both of blood and

1 The Pragmatic Sanction was the settlement made by the Emperor
Charles VI. in 1722 of his hereditary dominions upon his daughter Maria
Theresa, which had been confirmed by the diet of the Empire, and gua-
ranteed by England, France, and Holland, and most of the other powers.

1733. APFAIRS OF POLAND. 249

gratitude, she was sure, in any future disputes that
should arise in Europe, must always give her cause the
preference and her interest assistance.

The Primate of Poland," who had been gained by the
money of France to the interest of Stanislaus, in his
first step towards an election proposed an oath to be
taken by all the Electors not to choose a foreigner.
This oath, which, by the strength of the party of Stanis-
laus and the authority of the Primate, was forced on
the people, entirely set aside the Elector of Saxony.
The Emperor, therefore, and the Czarina ordered their
ministers at Warsaw to protest against it, both of them
pretending that it abridged the freedom of the Poles,
who had a right to choose what King they thought fit,
and for the maintenance of which fireedom of election
the Emperor said he was by treaty a guarantee. The
Czarina went still farther, for she absolutely protested
against the election of Stanislaus, who she insisted by
a treaty now subsisting between Russia and Poland was
for ever proscribed and made incapable of reascending
the throne. When the Muscovite Ambassador at
Warsaw made this protest to the Primate, he did it
attended only with a few domestics, and at the same
time told the Primate publicly, if the remonstrances
were not listened to, that there were thirty thousand
Bussians then on the confines of Poland, who should
penetrate his country, lay waste whatever they found in
their way, march directly to Warsaw, and make their
whole city a scene of blood, confusion, and ruin.

s The Archbishop of Gnesna, Primate of Poland (at this time Theodore
Potocki), exercised, in right of that see, the sovereign authority of the
State during any interregnum.

250 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIL

This defiance being thrown out at an assembly of the
Poles, in a field where great numbers were met to con-
sult on some point relating to the present critical junc-
ture of affairs, the Muscovite Ambassador had like to
have been murdered on the spot, and was with great
difficulty rescued by his own train out of the hands of
some warm partisans of King Stanislaus, who were
already advanced to destroy him.

After these verbal representations and arguments,
these two great powers, the Emperor and Czarina, pro-
ceeded to the ratio vltima regum^ and prepared two
great armies to march to the frontiers of Poland, the
Czarina on the side of Lithuania and the Emperor on
that of Silesia ; whereupon France also marched sisty
thousand men, under the command of Marshal Berwick,
natural son to King James II. of England, to the banks
of the Rhine, and threatened, if the Emperor entered
Poland, or any way by force pretended to influence the
election, that he himself should be immediately at-
tacked, either by the siege of Luxembourg or in what-
ever quarter he should be found most vulnerable or
most exposed.

The Emperor, finding that neither Holland, who had
signed a treaty of neutrality with France, nor England,
who did not care to be drawn into any dispute in this
affair, would stand by him in the point he was pushing,
began to think of retreating as fast as he could firom the
unadvised hasty steps he had taken. But the same
thing happened in this occurrence among the great
powers of Europe that often happens in private trans-
actions among people of inferior rank, which was, that
after beginning to dispute on a trifle, to which they

173S. AFFAIRS OF POLAND. 251

either were, or at least ought to have been, very indif-
ferent, by little and little they worked themselves up to
be so much in earnest, and each of them piqued them-
selves so much on that point of honour which everybody
makes to himself of going through with what he under-
takes, that all Europe was now upon the very verge of
being embroiled in a war, which no one power in Eu-
rope was either inclined to or in a condition to under*
take. France was drained of all her specie, which had
been expended in corrupting the Piastes ' at Warsaw,
and Cardinal Fleury, both in principle and interest,
was so much averse to a war, that nothing but the im-
possibility of avoiding it could bring him ever to consent
to declare it.

The Emperor was still less disposed to it, having no
money, his troops dispersed^ and weak in every place
where he had anything to maintain : he had been for
two years evacuating Italy ; he was able to make no
opposition to the French on the Ehine ; and was so de-
stitute of forces, ammunition, provisions, and everything
necessary to resist a siege in the Netherlands, that if
the French had not known that neither the English nor
the Dutch could suffer that barrier to be broken, they
might have taken all he possessed in Flanders in half a
campaign.

This Imperial bully, therefore, the series of whose
conduct for several years past had always been either
making promises he did not perform or throwing out
menaces he did not dare to execute, now grew fright-
ened, and that he might not give France an open handle

s Piastui was an old Polish sovereign and saint (a.d. 860), after whom
fuUivt sovereigns and those who favoured that principle were called Piasiei,

252 LOBD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. Xn.

for attacking him, or a pretence for passing the Rhine,
countermanded the marching those troops that were in
Silesia, and ordered them not to advance towards
Poland, but to keep in an absolute state of inaction.

But the Russians having already entered Lithuania,
and continuing their march towards Warsaw, the
French said that as the Russians were put in motion by
the contrivance of the Emperor, and took their mea-
sures underhand in concert with him, so whatever im-
pediment was made by the Muscovites to the election
of Stanislaus, they should look upon it in the same light
as if it were done by the Imperial troops, and conse-
quently resent it accordingly.

In the meantime the French fitted out a squadron of
fourteen men-of-war for the conveyance, as they pre-
tended, of King Stanislaus to Dantzic, which fleet, to
carry on the grimace,^ actually sailed to the Baltic, as if
he had been on board, whilst in reality he went incog-
nito by land, and lay concealed in Warsaw till the day
of election in the house of M. Monti, the French Am-
bassador.

Some time before the election another party began
to gather strength in Poland — a party that was not for
choosing either Stanislaus or the Elector of Saxony,
but who proposed some third man to be taken, who
should be a nobleman and native of their own, in order
to avoid a scission (which is the term the Poles have to
express an election decided by arms and not by voices).

4 The Chevalier de Thiange, in the costume of Stanislaus, and in his
coach, travelled to Brest, and there embarked under a royal salute, while
Stanislaus, in a mean disguise and by many artifices, crossed Germany and
Prussia, and arrived at Warsaw on the 8th of September, where he re-
mained concealed till his election of the Uth.

1788. . ELECTION OF STANISLAUS. 253

Many people were of opinion that the Primate under-
hand encouraged this party, who were for choosing a
PiastCy or noble native of Poland, hoping by that
means to make the election fall on his own nephew ;
but whether this project was ever in his thoughts, or
whether he only could not bring it to bear, is what I do
not pretend to determine; though, considering the
character of the man, I think the last conjecture the
most probable.

When the day of election came \\,\th September],
the Primate rode into the field, preceded by Ponia-
towski. Regimentary of the Crown, who harangued the
nobles in favour of Stanislaus, and told them it was the
only choice that could prevent a scission and preserve
the tranquillity of the kingdom. Others said that the
election of a Piaste only could have these efiects, and
put in nomination Prince Wisnowieski, Castellan of
Cracow. Prince Lubomirski, Palatine of Sendomir,
declared also against Stanislaus, and said to the Count
de Tarlo, Palatine of Lublin, " You used to threaten
death to any that should oppose Stanislaus in the field
of election; if you dare to prosecute your threats,
behold in me the man who opposes him and bids you
defiance." The Starost Opoczinski went still fiirther,
and openly in the field of election said to the whole
collected party of Stanislaus, " I speak in favour of
liberty and i^ainst any election made in consequence
of a restraining oath; and if this is being an enemy
to my country, let him who thinks so strike me to
the heart,'* in pronouncing which words he bared his
breast and presented it to the stroke. But a little
tumult arising upon it, and some of the party of Stanis-

254 LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. JQI.

laus advancing to take him at his word, he was hurried
out of the field by some of his own suite, whilst the rest
of his party put themselves between him and his assail-
ants. Immediately after this all the Palatines who
were against Stanislaus, finding they were likely to be
overpowered, retired to the other side of the River
Vistula, after which the Primate brought on the elec^
tion, and Stanislaus was chosen ; six people of condition
who were i^ainst him, and had not retired with the
rest, being cut to pieces on the spot for opposing him :
notwithstanding which, the election wajs notified by the
French minister at every Court in Europe ajs unani-
mous.

As soon as the election was over, the Electors, with
the Primate and Regimentary of the Crown at their
head, went to the House of the French Ambassador to
acquaint Stanislaus with his being once more King of
Poland, and pay their homi^e to their new sovereign ;
from thence he was conducted to the castle, with all
those honours and acclamations generally given to
royal idols when attended only by their own votaries.

But upon coming to' the casde and looking out of
the windows, when he saw how numerous tibe party
appeared that had passed the Vistula, and were col-
lected at Praga, his joy was extremely abated, and
turning to the Primate, he said, " How much you de-
ceived me when you told me my election was unani-
mous I'*

However, after the news was spread of his being
chosen, most people were of opinion that the lowering
clouds of war that had hung over Europe during the
suspension of the election would soon be dispersed^ and

1783. ELECTION OF STANISLAUS. 255

many incidents contributed, besides that of Stanislaus
being now actually King (which alone made opposition
a more up-hill game), to make the world imagine that
this sudden-raised tempest would as suddenly subside.
The one was, that the Emperor, finding he was not likely
to be supported by any of the Southern powers, himself
gave but cold encouragement to the Russians to pro-
ceed, though he had been so zealous in pushing them on
to the undertaking. In the next place, both the
Muscovites and the Emperor were likely to have more
material business of their own upon their hands : the
first being under apprehensions of the approach of a
great body of Tartars, who had made a descent on the
side of Muscovy ; and the last fearing that a late vic-
tory gained by the Turks over the Persians, might in-
duce those ancient enemies of his Imperial Majesty to
turn their arms to this part of the globe.

This being the present situation of affitirs, every man
in England who had the interest of his country at heart
and understood it, was glad when the news came that
the election was over and made in favour of Stanislaus :
in the first place, because everybody of the thin class I
have mentioned (that is, who both mean and know what
is right) is always thoroughly convinced that the most
pernicious circumstances his country can be in are those
of war, as we must be great losers whilst the war lasts,
and can never be great gainers when it ends ; in the
next place, those who had the least degree of foresight
could easily perceive that as matters stood at this time,
the success of Stanislaus was the only thing that could
possibly prevent a war. For had he, like the Prince

256 LOKD UERYEY'8 &1EM0IKS. Chap. XH.

of Conti at the last election,* been sent back to France,
who could imagine that that Court, after the fast ex-
pense made in his favour at Warsaw, and with such an
army on the Rhine, would acquiesce under the disap-
pointment and pocket the disgrace, and sit down the
quiet dupe of the Court of Vienna, with this rod of
vengeance in their hands, and the backs of their anta-
gonists so exposed to correction?

But notwithstanding our interest was thus conse-
quentially so much concerned in this event, few people
in England were pleased with it ; the honest patriots
in opposition to the Court, on one side, being sorry that
so unpopular an incident as the breaking out of a war
would have been for the Government at this time, was
likely to be prevented ; and the wise courtiers, on the
other part, who knew the inveterate hatred our King
bore to the French at this time, being rather desirous
to risk their own power, and perhaps his crown, than
not make their court to the unreasonable prejudices of
their warm ignorant master.

For the Duke of Grafton, he always talked as the
King talked ; and the Duke of Newcastle, who, to give
him his due, seldom slipped an occasion to manifest his
good judgment, was foremost in his declarations on this
occasion ; Lord Hervey (who had acted more prudently
to have been glad in private, than to declare his joy)
said, for his part he owned he thought the success of
Stanislaus the best news he had heard a good while.

^ In 1697, after the death of Sobieski, the Prince de Conti, after being
elected, was ousted by Augustus of Saxony, but Poland was obliged to
make amende both in money and verba] apologies to France.

1788. ELECTION OF STANISLAUS. 267

The King took him up very short, and said it was no
great proof of his justice to rejoice at the good fortune
of a man that had been a traitor and a rebel to his
lawful sovereign, and had usurped his crown. Lord
Hervey assured the King he neither considered the
justice of Stanislaus' former nor present pretensions to
the crown ; that all the reason he had for being glad on
this occasion was, having the welfare of England and
the ease of his Majesty's Government more at heart
than any other consideration.

Sir Bobert Walpole, who generally thought and acted \
with better sense than anybody about him or against i
him, kept his opinion to himself wished success to
Stanislaus internally, and in a quiet way did all he
could to procure it. Besides the national aversion
which all Germans are born with to the French, the
King had other little motives to wish them disappointed
on this occasion ; which were, fitst, the making another
Elector a King, and next the a^randizing the Em-
peror, whom, as Elector of Hanover, he always looked
upon as his chief: — reasons that would have had but
small weight in a great mind ; but as weak ones are
generaUy actuated by weak principles, so the strongest
biasses in narrow souls generally consist of such trifles.

The Queen herself was enough prejudiced too on this
side, till Sir Bobert Walpole unwarped her from it, and
made her see how much this inclination jarred with her own
interest. He convinced her that the Emperor had been
originally in the wrong in the treaty made between him,
Muscovy, and Denmark, for the exclusion of Stanislaus ;
that it was, moreover, extremely impolitic in his Im-

VOL. L 8

»-.

258 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XU.

perial Majesty to run the risk of losing Italy for the
sake of nominating a King of Poland ; that his suffering
hi$ Ambassador to act constantly in conjunction with
that of Muscovy at Warsaw and go with him in person
to the Primate, bidding him choose Stanislaus at his
peril, were steps not to be justified. He fiirther told
her that nothing could do the King so much disservice
at this time as engaging in war ; first, as the name of
war was seldom acceptable in this country, but that a
war on account of a King of Poland was certainly what
the nation could never be brought to think necessary or
expedient ; and as the elections were now coming on,
the ferment in the country so great, and every circum-
stance that could blacken the Government so indus-
triously improved, it was absolutely necessary for us to
keep out of the squabble, and that the only part for us
to take was to remain in an absolute state of inaction,
without entering into any obligation of neutrality ; for
to advise giving the Emperor any assistance on this
occasion would be (all these circumstances considered)
as great an imprudence in the English ministers as it was
in the Imperial counsellors to bring their master into a
situation that made assistance so necessary. This was
the language Sir Robert Walpole talked to the Queen.
In the meantime the Muscovites continuing their
march towards Warsaw, and having called in the
Cossacks and Kalmucs to their assistance and being
joined by the Malcontents of Poland^ King Stanislaus,
the Primate and their party, who were in no condition
to make any resistance, were obliged to leave Warsaw
and retire to Dantzic ; soon after which the party of

1733. KING OF SABSINIA. 259

the Elector of Saxony proceeded to an election of their
own, and chose him King.

France was so much irritated at this proceeding, that
war against the Emperor was now declared in form ;
Mar^chal Berwick passed the Bhine and besieged Fort
Kehl ; and an army of 40,000 men, under the command
of Marshal Y illars, passed the Alps (late as it was in
the year) in order to attack the Emperor in Italy : this
step was taken in consequence of a treaty concluded
between the Courts of France and Turin, by which
treaty the King of Sardinia obliged himself to give free
passage through his territories to the French troops. I
cannot help observing here, how very impertinently
Lord Essex, the English Ambassador at Turin, was
treated on this occasion by that Court: as it was the
desire of England at this time to keep the possessions
of Italy in the hands they now were, and to preserve
the tranquillity of that country. Lord Essex was ordered
from his Court to propose an accommodation between
the Emperor and the King of Sardinia, the plan of
which accommodation the Sardinian ministers desired
his Lordship to state to them in writing three weeks
after they had actually signed a treaty with the Court
of France, by which they obliged themselves to join
with France in attacking him.

The King, in telling Lord Hervey this circumstance,
one morning at breakfast in the garden at Hampton
Court, when nobody was present but the Queen, said
that the King of Sardinia's conduct appeared to him to
be frill as weak with regard to his own interest as it was
impertinent with regard to England, and that he would
soon find he had exchanged an ally for a master. ^^ His

s2

260 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XH.

Sardinian Majesty," replied Lord Hervey,* " is so poor
a creature, that very few testimonies of his folly could
surprise me ; but this step would prove all the people
about him equal fools to their master, if one imagined
they advised this measure as thinking it for the interest
of their country: for which reason (continued Lord
Hervey) I cannot help believing he must have been
secretly sold to France by some Minister in whom he
has confided upon this occasion."

" That may easily be," the King answered, " if he is
really so poor a creature as you say." Lord Hervey
assured his Majesty that it was impossible to describe
either the aspect or the understanding of this King as
meaner than it had appeared to him, and that the short
acquaintance he had had with him five years ago at the
Court of Turin, during the life and before the abdica-
tion of his father, had given him so low an opinion of his
abilities, that he could imagine no error too gross for his
Sardinian Majesty to be capable of committing. The
Queen asked Lord Hervey if this was said to be merely
owing to his natural want of understanding, or if his
father had ever been reproached with neglecting his
education. Lord Hervey told her Majesty that his
father had always, as he had heard, kept him in great
subjection, but that no pains had been spared to form
him or to make something of him, if there had been afty
materials to work upon. — Here the King interrupted,
and colouring with a mixture of anger and hatred, said.

6 Lord Hervey's recent visit to Italy had made him personally acquainted
with those Courts ; but his low estimate of the personal character of the
King of Sardinia is not borne out either by the historians— nor apparently
by the events.

1733. FRENCH INVADB LORRAINE. 261

" I do not want to know that there may be people on
whom all pams and care in education are thrown away." '
— ^Upon which the Queen winked at Lord Hervey to
make no reply, and immediately turned the conversa-
tion.

At the same time that the French were attacking
the Emperor in Italy, they also sent 15,000 men to take
possession of the duchy of Lorraine, whilst his Most
Christian Majesty, to excuse the abrupt roughness of so
uncharitable a deed, was pleased to send this message to
his Welsh aunt," the Duchess-Dowager of that country,
who was then at Luneville : —

" That reasons of State had forced him very unwillingly to
take this step, but that if her Serene EQghness, till the present
storm in Europe should be blown over, would please to take
up her residence in any part of his dominions, she had but to
name the place, and he would take care to have it prepared for
her with all the respect due to her birth, as a grand-daughter
of France, and that she might depend on every mark of affec-
tion she could claim from a Prince who was so nearly related
to her."

Her Highness received this regal compliment as it
deserved, and, with a magnanimity worthy of any
Spartan heroine, sent the Bang of France this answer : —

^^ That she did not think it at all proper for the mother to
take sanctuary in the dominions of the man who had so un-
equitably seized the son's, and that she should never hope to
receive favours where she had not found justice."

After which she retired with her younger son and her
two daughters to Brussels.

f Allusion to Frederick, Prince of Wales. See the close of the last
chapter.
8 She was sister of the Regent Duke of Orleans.

262 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOmS. Chap. XH.

During all these transactions Lord Hervey, who was
as much in Sir Bobert Walpole's way of thinking as he
was in his interest^ and vehemently against engaging
England in this war, had more frequent opportunities
than any other person about the Court of learning the
Queen's sentiments on these affairs, and conveying to
her his own. Wednesdays and Saturdays, which were
the King's days for hunting, he had her to himself for
four or five hours, her Majesty always hunting in a
chaise, and as she neither saw nor cared to see much of
the chase, she had undertaken to mount Lord Hervey
the whole summer (who loved hunting as little as she
did), so that he might ride constantly by the side of
her chaise, and entertain her whilst other people were
entertaining themselves with hearing dogs bark and
seeing crowds gallop.

Sunday and Monday Lord Hervey lay constantly in
London ; every other morning he used to walk with the
Queen and her daughters at Hampton Court. His real
business in London was pleasure ; but as he always told
the King it was to pick up news, to hear what people
said, to see how they looked, and to inform their Ma-
jesties what was thought by all parties of the present
posture of affairs, he by these means made his pleasure
in town and his interest at Court reciprocally conducive
to each other.

These excursions put it also in his power to say
things as fi'om other people's mouths, which he did not
dare to venture from his own, and often to deliver that
as the effect of his observation which in reality flowed
only from his opinion. However, that he might not
draw on others the anger which by this method he

1783. CONVERSATIONS WITH THE KING. 263

diverted from himself he used, both to the King and
the Queen, to say he would willingly let them know
everything he heard, but must beg leave always to be
excused from telling where he had it or from whom ;
and as it was of much more use to their Majesties to
know what was said than by whom, so he hoped they
would give him leave, whilst for their sakes he com-
municated the one, for his own to be silent upon the
other.

On these terms they accepted of his intelligence, and
by these preliminaries he was in possession of saying
the most disagreeable truths without either being re-
proved or being called upon for his authors.

The two great topics on which at present the inquiries
of the King and Queen chiefly turned were the elec^
tions* and the war. As to the first, their Majesties
always used to ask if the Opponents seemed in spirits
and in hopes ; to which Lord Hervey generally replied
that as it was so much their business to appear pleased
and sanguine, it was very difficult to perceive whether
they were really so or not, but as it was very certain no
party at any time was ever more indefatigable in their
attacks on a Government than the anti-courtiers were
at present in every quarter of the kingdom, so if one
might guess at their hopes of success by their assiduity
in pursuing their objects, no party could ever think
themselves more secure of prevailing ; " though for my
own part (swd he), whenever any of them have talked
to me in a strain as if they flattered thepselves there

* He means the prospect of the general elections in the following
spring.

264 LORD HERVET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XII.

would be any change in the complexion of the next
Parliament, my answer has always been, * The Court
have truth and money on their side — two things which,
if rightly managed, must in conjunction ever prevail ;
and if our friends have not skill enough to point out the
force of the one or dexterity enough to insinuate the
persuasions of the other, in my opinion they deserve to
be beaten ; but as almost all mankind are either to be
convinced or to be bought, so having sense enough
among us to open our mouths and resolution enough to
open our purses, what real foundation you gentlemen in
the Opposition have to build your hopes upon is past
my finding out'"

"And what,'* replied the King, "do the puppies
answer to this ? Do they not look silly ? They did not
expect, I suppose, to find me so firm. The fools ima-
gined, perhaps, they could frighten me ; but they must
not think they have got a Stuart upon the throne, or if
they do, they will find themselves mistaken."

Lord Hervey said he had no great opinion of their
knowledge or their penetration, and^ therefore, could
not easily determine what was too absurd for such
people to believe or hope to propagate. People were of
opinion that nothing could keep up the flame kindled
in the nation till the next elections without new fiiel
being added to it, and that no fiiel could be so effectual
as that of a war. " In the next place. Sir, they say
that besides war being generally unpopular, England
entering into a war for a King of Poland would make
the cause as subject to ridicule as the effect would be to
dislike, and consequently give the enemies to your
Majesty's Government a double handle for censure

1788. CONVERSATIONS WITH THE KING, 265

and invective." "What party, then (said the King),
do people who wish well to Government hope I will
take ?*' " That of neutrality and inaction, Sir (replied
Lord Hervey), from engaging on neither side. They
say your Majesty has nothing to apprehend at home or
abroad ; till you have declared, both sides will court
you ; and that if your Majesty were to declare, you
would lose all advantages you at present have fit)m the
friendship of the one, without augmenting the number
of those you enjoy from the other. It is further said, if
it shall be necessary at last for your Majesty to arbitrate
in this quarrel, when the contending partis shall be so
weakened by the duration of their contest, their troops
declined, and their treasure diminished, they will more
easily submit to what your Majesty shall decree, or more
readily agree to what you shall propose when so re-
duced, than in the first warmth of their resentment
and in the freshest vigour of their strength at
setting out. In the meantime each Power hoping to
win you to their friendship, your Majesty's subjects will
exercise their commerce freely all over Europe, will
enjoy the benefits of peace, whilst their neighbours are
harassed by war; and after receiving favours on all
hands, whilst others are receiving blows, will, by these
means, be able in opulence and prosperity to give laws
to those who will have brought themselves into poverty
and distress. This is the manner in which your Ma-
jesty's friends talk on the present conjuncture ; and as
one may gather information as well from the discourse
of one's enemies as from that of one's friends, and that
what the one wishes one should not do, may possibly be
as good a rule to judge by, as what the other wishes one

266 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chju?. XII.

should, SO I own the eager desire and the great expect-
ation I see among some people to have your Majesty
engaged in this war is as strong a confirmation to me
in the opinion that you ought not to be so, as any I hear
among our own firiends in behalf of peace. I could not
help saying, Sir^ the other day, to one who, with more
zeal than prudence, assured me that the present posture
of affairs would certainly be the ruin of my friends, that
he would find himself I believed, extremely mistaken,
and, on the contrary, if these occurrences were rightly
managed, which I doubted not but they would be, that
he would see the situation of affairs abroad would be so far
from obstructing your Majesty's measures this winter at
home, that it would certainly make them go on easier than
if these broils upon the Continent had not happened, as
they would silence all the clamour the Opponents hoped
to raise next Session against keeping up the present
army, and yet not be of a nature sufficient to require
the increase of it, by which means the Court would be
able to avoid either the unpopularity of entering into a
war, or that of keeping up what were last year called
useless troops in time of peace. I further told this
person. Sir, that I knew the Opponents had laid schemes
to have addresses this next Session against the army,
as last year against the Excise, from every place in
England where they could obtain them, with the most
positive instructions from constituents to their repre-
sentatives to vote against the present number of
troops that it was possible to draw up; all which
well laid and dexterously laboured scheme must now
be overturned and defeated, as no man of common
sense could attempt to propose a reduction of the

1733. CONVERSATIONS WITH THE QUEEN. 267

forces, because no one of common sense would regard
him if he did."

Lord Hervey (bent on dissuading the King as far as
his power could go from running the English hastily
into this Polish squabble) was constantly, whenever he
had opportunity of talking to his Majesty, plying him
in this strain ; nor was he less busy in endeavouring to
bring the Queen into a pursuit of these measures,
though the way he took to influence her was in some
particulars different He tried to pique her pride into
espousing what he thought right, by telling her that
everybody in town was of opinion that her Majesty saw
plainly it was the interest of the nation and the interest
of the Court for the King» as long as it was possible, to
keep us out of this war, for which reason she was con-
stantly labouring to bring his Majesty to forbear ui^ing
matters to extremity; but that in this point people
said she would be overruled, and her prudence forced
to give way to his impetuosity, and her will, though
hitherto absolute in the State, now made to yield to his.
By inculcating these things Lord Hervey endeavoured
to make her engage in pursuing what was not her
inclination, lest people should think it was, and that she
wanted power to fulfil it.

But whilst I relate these things said Jby Lord Hervey
on this occasion, I am far from meaning to insinuate
that they were conveyed to their Majesties only from
him, or that he was the secret spring on which many
great events moved. That was not the case ; for Sir
Kobert Walpole constantly, and with much more weight,
talked in the same strain. My reason, therefore, for
putting these arguments into Lord Hervey*s mouth in

268 LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XU.

this narrative is, because I know they were said by him,
and only conjecture their being said by any other per-
son. And as he was the only man of common sense,
not upon the foot of a minister, who had access to
them at their private and leisure hours, he had more
opportunities of saying things than many of those who
held the same sentiments, and had more understanding
than many of those who had the same opportunities.

Spain had not yet adventured herself either in league
against the Emperor in Italy or in a resolution to de-
fend him, nor was she determined to maintain a neu-
trality ; and as much depended on the part she would
act, strenuous endeavours were used on both sides to
gain her. The King having undertaken to negotiate
this affair between the Courts of Vienna and Spain,
the whole transaction was carried on at the Court of
England, where the Conde de Montijo, Ambassador
from Spain to this Court, was set up at auction, whilst
M. de Chavigny, the French minister, and Count
Einski, the Imperial Ambassador, bid for him.

What I am going to relate I had directly from the
mouth of the Queen, who being always partial to the
Emperor, one may be sure his faults in this relation
are not exaggerated.

The plan of accommodation and alliance between
the Imperial and Spanish Courts was drawn up by Sir
Bobert Walpole, and these were the terms : — that on
condition the Emperor would give the second Arch-
Duchess with the kingdom of Naples and Sicily as
dower, that Spain should support the Emperor in the
possession of every other country he was master of in
Italy, and even of these during his life.

1788. AFFAIBS OF EUROPE. 269

This proposal was given in writing to Montijo and
Kinski, and despatched by them to their respective
Courts, Montijo received full powers to sign, whilst
Kinski received nothing in answer but inexplicable
instructions, that bore no marks of anything plainly to
be understood but the pride and folly of the present
head of the Austrian family, who seemed to regulate
his whole conduct on the haughty maxims of Charles Y.,
without either his understanding or his purse.

However, as things grew every hour worse and
worse for the Emperor ; as the arms of France both
in Italy and on the Rhine made such quick work in
defeating him ; and as so much time would be neces-
sary, if fresh instances were sent to Vienna, for the
Emperor's assent to this accommodation, and the re-
turn of that messenger waited for ; and as the Spanish
Ambassador had powers to sign and offered to make
use of them ; the King of England pressed Kinski ex-
tremely to strike whilst the iron was hot, showed him
the danger of delay, and offered to write with his own
hand to the Emperor to indemnify him ; but neither
the King, the Queen, nor any of our ministers could
prevail with him to conclude this matter without send-
ing for fiirther powers and instructions. But before this
messenger returned, Spain, irritated by these delays of
the Emperor, had joined with France, and when
Kinski, on the arrival of this last courier, offered to
sign the treaty, the Spanish minister refrised, said it
was now too late, that his master had concluded a
treaty with the King of France, and had already given
orders for his troops immediately to join those of France
and Sardinia in Italy.

270 LOKD HERYEY'S MEMOIBS. Chap. XIL

By ihk absurd conduct of the Emperor, therefore,
he first lost the advantages he might have had rather
than lower his pride, and then had the mortification of
quitting his pride without the benefit of getting any-
thing by so doing.

The consequence of which reasonable and judicious
behaviour was, that before the Parliament met this
year, which was in the middle of January, the war in
Italy was prosecuted with so much v^our by this triple
alliance of France, Spain, and Sardinia, that the Em-
peror was not master of one single place in Italy on
this side the Ecclesiastical State but the Mantuan. His
affairs having been so well mans^ed, that with 13,000
men in Lombardy, and provisions for double that num-
ber and ammunition in proportion, these essentials of
war were so disposed and scattered, that wherever
there were provisions there was no ammunition, and
where there was ammunition there were no provisions,
and where there were men there was neither ammuni-
tion nor provisions.

^V]

178S. MABBIAGE OF PBINCESS BOYAL. 271

CHAPTER XIII.

Marriago of Princess Royal — Arrival of Prince of Orange — King's treat-
ment of him — ^Lord Hervejr reports ill of his person, but well of his
mind — ^Behaviour of the Princess — Prince falls dangerously ill — Prince
of Wales's dissension with the King — His revenue — Lord Hervey's
advice — The Queen's answer — King's Speech — Lord Hervey moves the
Address — New Peerages — Lord Chancellor Talbot— Lord Chief-Justice
Hardwicke — Lord Chancellor King — ^Dukes of Marlborough and Bed-
ford— Bill to make Army Commissions for life — King's imgiving dispo-
sition— Duke of Richmond — ** Court Drudge" — ^Further particulars of
the Queen's character and conduct.

Thb sammer now drawing to a conclusion, the marriage
of the Princess Boyal began again to be talked of, and
those necessary previous stipulations were anew taken
into consideration which the dilatoriness of tixe King,
the indifference of his Ministers, and the tardy phlegm
of Dutch negotiators had left unadjusted for more
months than they really required days to be settled in
if proper diligence had been used. At last everything
was finished, and a yacht ordered to Holland to bring
the Prince of Orange over. Horace Walpole, under
the pretence of going to attend his Highness hither,
was sent to concert measures with the ministers of the
States, and agree what part England and Holland
should take at this very critical conjuncture of affairs.

But this finesse was as coarse as it was ridiculous and
unnecessary, everybody the moment he was nominated
for this voyage discerning the reason of it, and every-
body knowing that — whether Horace was sent to Hoi-

272 LORD HERYET'S MEMOIRS. Crap. Xm.

land or not — it was natural, reasonable, necessary, and
sure that Holland and England ought, must, and would
act in concert upon this occasion.

The beginning of November [the 7th'] the Prince of
Orange arrived, and was lodged in Somerset House :
almost all the nobility and people of distinction in Eng-
land went to wait upon him there ; several were of that
number who did not come to Court. He came the next
morning to St. James's through crowded streets and un-
ceasing acclamations, though the equipage the King
sent to fetch him was only one miserable leading coach
with only a pair of horses.'

The palace was so thronged that he could hardly get
up stairs or pass from one room to another, most people
having a curiosity to see him, and few having yet found
out that making their court to him was not making it
at all to his future father-in-law.

The maxim the King seemed to have laid down to
govern his conduct towards this Prince, and the opinion
he seemed to desire tacitly to inculcate was, that the
Prince of Orange was a nothing till he had married his
daughter, and that being her husband made him every-
thing.

Conformable to this maxim he suffered no sort of
public honours to be paid to the Prince on his arrival,
and behaved himself with scarce common civility

1 Strange to say, the peculiar meaning of '' a leading coach ** has been
lost in the Master of the Horse's office, though these offices are usually so
conservative of etiquette. It seems, however, that Lord Hervey's com-
plaint was unfounded ; for the last record found of a " leading coach ** is the
sending one in 1797 for the Prince of Wirtemberg, then come over to
marry the Princess Royal — so that the leading coach seems to have been
the proper equipage.

1738. PRINCE OF ORANGE. 273

towards him, which the Prince of Orange had sense
enough to feel and to seem not to see. The Tower
guns were not allowed to salute him, nor was the guard
permitted to turn out upon his arrival.* Lord Lovelace
was sent with one of the King's coaches to receive him
at his landing, and with great difficulty the King was
persuaded, the night the Prince came first to Somerset
House, to send Lord Hervey to him with his compli-
ments.

The Queen desired Lord Hervey the instant he re-
turned to come directly to her apartment, and let her
know Mrithout disguise what sort of hideous animal she
was to prepare herself to see. Lord Hervey, when he
came hack, assured her he had not found him near so
bad as he had imagined ; that she must not expect to
see an Adonis, that his body was as bad as possible,
but that his countenance was far from disagreeable, and
his address sensible, engaging, and noble ; that he
seemed entirely to forget his person, and to have an
understanding to make other people forget it too.'

s Lord Hervey is here again, I think, rather hypercritical. The Prince
did not receive these or similar honours at home, and was not yet the King's
son-in-law ; and so was not entitled to be received with royal state : — which,
moreover, would have needlessly increased the jealousy, already felt in Hol-
land, of this alliance. See post, p. 319.

8 The Prince was about twenty-two. Lord Hervey gives subsequently
a worse account of his person ; but Lord Chesterfield's portrait in 1729,
when the match was first thought of, is more favourable : —

'* Ihe Hague, ISth Feb. — ^The Prince of Orange arrived here last night.
I went to wait upon him, and, as far as I am able to judge from half an
hour's conversation only, I think he has extreme good parts. He is per-
fectly well bred, and civil to everybody, and with an ease and freedom that
is seldom acquired but by a long knowledge of the world. His face is
handsome ; his shape is not so advantageous as could be wished, though not
near so bad as I had heard represented. He assumes not the least dignity,
but has all the af&bility and insinuation that is necessary for a person who
would raise himself in a popular government." — Chest, Cor, iii. 48.
VOL. L T

274 LORD HKRVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XIH.

Lord Hervey said he fancied the Princess must be
in a good deal of anxiety ; but the Queen told him he
was extremely mistaken, that she was in her own apart-
ment at her harpsichord with some of the Opera
people/ and that she had been as easy all that afternoon
as she had ever seen her in her life. " For my part,"
said the Queen, " I never said the least word to en-
courage her to this marriage or to dissuade her from it ;
the King left her, too, absolutely at liberty to accept or
reject it ; but as she thought the King looked upon it
as a proper match, and one which, if she could bear his
person, he should not dislike, she said she was resolved,
if it was a monkey, she would marry him."

From the Queen Lord Hervey went to the Prin-
cesses, who were very impatient for a description of
their new brother-in-law, and asked if they were more
likely to have a true one for his being in the same
town than they were from one who had only seen him
in Holland.

The Princess Royal's behaviour next day, and in-
deed every day, with the eyes of the whole nation upon
her, was something marvellous for propriety, sense, and
good breeding. The Monday following was the day
fixed for the ceremony; but the Prince being taken ill
of a fever the day before, it was put off. He continued
ill a long time; was thought at first in immediate
danger, and for a considerable time in a languishing
condition from which it was impossible he should ever
recover.

During this tedious and dangerous illness no one of

* The Princess Royal was a good musician, aad a worm and constant
patroness of Handel, who had been her music-master.

1784. PRINCE OP WALES. 275

the Boyal Family went to see him. The King thought
it below his dignity, and the rest, whatever they
thought, were not allowed to do it

The Prince of Orange could not but be extremely
concerned at this treatment; but had, however, the
prudence to be silent on a chapter which his Dutch
booby retinue had the imprudence to preach upon all
day and in all companies.

As soon as he was able to go out he went to St
James's, and by chance dined with the Princesses, who
were forbid to invite him any more. He removed to
Kensington for the air, and was from thence sent to
the Bath. But — on his arrival in England — on the day
for the marriage being appointed — on its being put off —
on his illness — on his recovery — on his being in danger
— or on his being out of it — the countenance of the
Princess Boyal to the nicest examiners appeared exactly
the same ; which surprised everybody so much the more
as she was known to be of a temper to which nothing
was really indifferent, whatever it appeared.

1734. — On new-year's day the Prince of Wales
was persuaded by Mr. Dodington to go to the King's
levee, where he had not made his appearance for
some months, and was now induced to it not from a
desire to show respect to his father, but in order (hoping
the King would not speak to him) to show the world
how ill he was used and what little encouragement he
had to pay his father any compliment of that kind.
Lord Hervey, who knew from Mr. Hedges (the Prince's
treasinrer) the night before that the Prince intended
going to the King's levee, told the Queen of it, and

t2

276 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIIL

desired her to contrive the King's speaking to him, to
prevent what they proposed, telling her how usefiil it
would be towards stopping the report of the Prince's
ill usage, and what a damp it would cast upon the
schemes of those who built their hopes of annoyance
this winter upon the expectation of an open rupture in
the family.

This intimation had its effect ; the Prince was spoken
to in the presence of that numerous appearance of
bowing nobility and gentry who generally thronged
the palace on those days, and the report of no intei^
course either of words or visits passing between these
two great personages was, of course, refuted.

Lord Hervey took the opportunity of this interview
with the Queen and the Prince's name being men-
tioned, to tell her that even the best friends to her, the
King, and the Administration were of opinion that the
Prince had not money enough allowed him, and that
whilst he was so straitened in his circumstances it was
impossible he should ever be quiet " Ah !" said the
Queen, ^^that people will always be judging and de-
ciding upon what they know nothing of; who are these
wise people ?" Lord Hervey desired to be excused, —
and she went on. "Pray, when you hear them, my
Lord, talk their nonsense again, tell them that the
Prince costs the King 50,000?. a-year, which, till he is
married, I believe any reasonable body will think a
sufficient allowance for him. But, poor creature, with
not a bad heart, he is induced by knaves and fools that
blow him up to do things that are as unlike an honest
man as a wise one. I wonder what length those mon-
sters wish to carry him : but talk to me no more of his

1734. PMNCE OF WALES. 277

usage ; I wish he was as right towards the King as the
King is towards him.'* Lord Hervey said he did not
at all dispute the fact of the Prince's costing the King
50,000?. a-year; but if her Majesty would give him
leave, he would only ask why, instead of the King's
being at half that expense invisibly, he would not
choose rather to let the Prince keep his own table and
give him that allowance in a lump, which everybody
would acknowledge to be sufficient, and which, given
in this manner, would be at once more useful and
satisfactory to the Prince, and more creditable as well
as less troublesome to the King. When she was
pressed upon this point she had nothing to answer, but
that the King did not choose it should be so.

This being the Prince's present situation, his nume-
rous creditors being importunate, and his treasury
empty, the clandestine correspondence between him
and the Opposition continued in foil force, he hoping
to make some use of their despair, and they of his dis-
tress. The great points that were expected to be
pushed this Session in Parliament by the Opposition
were this afiair of the Prince's, a scrutiny into the debt
of the Navy, which was 1,800,000?., and the repeal of
the Septennial Bill.

Upon foreign affairs the Craftsman and his whole party
were quite silent, not caring, till the Court had declared
what part it would act, to say what they thought right,
because they would be at liberty, whatever that part
should be, to pronounce it wrong.

It was the business of Sir Robert Walpole, therefore,
to keep his designs in the dark as long as he could,
but everybody concluded that at the opening of the

278 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. Xm.

Session in the King's Speech he would be obliged to
declare one way or other. How dexterously and judi-
ciously he avoided that declaration can never be told so
well by anything as the Speech itself.*

Lord Hervey was pitched upon in the House of
Lords, much against the Duke of Newcastle's will, to
move the address to the King*s Speech ; and as what
he said may serve to illustrate the language talked at
this time by all the advocates for the Administration, I
shall give it at length [in the Appendix].

He concluded with the motion for the address, which
I need not repeat ; addresses of this kind, at the begin-
ning of a session, being never anything more than
echoing back the words of the throne, with general
assurances of seal and fidelity, confidence in his Ma-
jesty's wisdom and goodness, and a sort of promissory
note for compliance with his demands. The address of
the Commons was to the same efiect; and both passed
without opposition.

Before I proceed to the relation of what passed this
session in Parliament I must give a short account of
the changes made in the House of Lords in favour
of the Court since the ruffle on the South Sea affair
last year.

In the first place, all those who had not been turned
out of their employments for that elopement were re-
turned to the yoke firom which they had started^ and
drew as quietly as if they had never been restive.

In the next place, four new lords were added to this

^ Delivered 17th January, 1734. Lord Henrej had here inserted the
printed speech ; but as it may be found in the Journals and Magazines, it
seems not worth while to reprint it.

1734. NEW PEEES. 279

body — Lord Hinton, Lord Talbot, Lord Hardwicke,
and Lord Hervey. Lord Hinton was eldest son to
Earl Foulety a man of a great estate, who had been
Lord Steward in the four last years of Queen Anne's
reign, and was this year gained over to the Court on
his son's being made Lord of the Bedchamber, and
called up to the House of Peers. Lord Hardwicke and
Lord Talbot were two as great and eminent lawyers as
this country ever bred ; the first had been Attorney-
General, and the last Solicitor. Upon the corporal
death of my Lord Chief Justice Baymond, and the
intellectual demise of Lord Chancellor King, these two
men, Sir Philip Yorke and Mr. Talbot, were destined
to succeed them ; but the voracious appetite of the law
in these days was so keen, that these two morsels with-
out any addition were not enough to satisfy these two
cormorant stomachs. Here lay the difficulty: Sir
Philip Yorke, being first in rank, had certainly a right
to the Chancellor's seals ; but Mr. Talbot, who was an
excellent Chancery lawyer and knew nothing of the
Common law, if he was not Chancellor, would be
nothing. Yorke therefore, though fit for both these
employments, got the worst, being prevailed upon to
accept that of Lord Chief Justice, on the salary being
raised firom 3000/. to 4000/. a-year for life, and 1000/.
more paid him out of the Chancellor's salary by Lord
Talbot. This was a scheme of Sir Robert Walpole's,
who, as Homer says of Ulysses, was always fertile in
expedients, and thought these two great and able men
of too much consequence to lose or disoblige either.
Sir Bobert communicated this scheme secretly to the
Queen, she insinuated it to the King, and the King

280 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XHI.

proposed it to Sir Bobert as an act of his own ingenuity
and generosity.

Lord Talbot had as clear, separating, distinguishing,
subtle, and fine parts as ever man had. Lord Hard-
wicke's were perhaps less delicate, but no man's were
i more forcible. No one could make more of a good
/ cause than Lord Hardwicke, and no one so much of a
^^ I bad one as Lord Talbot The one had infinite know-
ledge, the other infinite ingenuity: they were both
excellent, but very difierent ; both amiable in their pri-
vate characters, as well as eminent in their public capa-
cities ; both good pleaders, as well as upright judges ; and
both esteemed by all parties, as much for their temper
and integrity as for their knowledge and abilities.

There was something very singular in the fortune
of the deposed Chancellor, Lord King, as he was per-
haps the only instance that can be given of a man raised
from the most mean and obscure condition to the
highest dignity in the state without the malice of one
enemy ever pretending to insinuate that the partiality
of his friends, in any one step of this rise, had pushed him
beyond his merit. He was made Chancellor as much
by the voice of the public as by the hand of power ; but
his entrance on that employment proved the vertical
point of his glory, for from the moment he possessed it
his reputation, without the least reflection upon his
integrity, began to sink ; and had the seals been taken
from him, even before his imbecility occasioned by his
apoplectic fits, it would have been with the same uni-
versal approbation witii which they were conferred.
Expedition was never reckoned among the merits of
the Court of Chancery ; but whilst Lord King pre-

1784. LORD CHANCELLOR KING. 281

sided there the delays of it were insupportable. He
had such a diffidence of himself that he did not dare to
do rights for fear of doing wrong ; decrees were always
extorted from him ; and had he been let alone he would
never have given any suitor his due, for fear of giving
him what was not so. This actual injustice was all he
avoided to commit ; never reflecting that the suspen-
sion of justice, in keeping people long out of their
rights, was a negative injury, which, considering the
trouble, the expense, the anxiety, and the thousand
other inconveniences that attended those delays, was
almost as bad as the total privation of it

His understanding was of that balancing, irresolute
kind that gives people just light enough to see diffi-
culties and form doubts, and not enough to surmount
the one or remove the other; which sort of under-
standing was of use to him as a pleader, though a trouble
to him as a judge, and made him make a great figure
at the bar, but an indifierent one upon the Chancery
bench ; the same knowledge and talents that helped him
to puzzle other judges when they were to decide, con-
tributed to puzzle himself when it was his turn to do so.
The Queen once said of him, and very truly, as well
as agreeably, that " He was just in the law what he had
formerly been in the Gospel — making creeds* upon the
one without any steady belief and judgments in the
other without any settled opinion : but the misfortune,"
said she, ^'for the public is, that» though they could
reject his silly creeds, they are forced often to submit
to his silly judgments."

• Lord King had dabbled in divinity, and published in 1702 a History
of the Apostles' Creed.

282 LOHD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XJJI.

Soon after he was Chancellor complaints were made
that all the equity of the nation was at a full stand ;
but till he had in a great measure lost his senses^ by
repeated attacks of apoplexy and palsy the Court did
not displace him ; and even then, though he had a
pension of 3000/. a-year given him on his dismission,
he was as much out of humour as if they had given him
nothing, and as angry at being out of his employment
as if he had been still fit to exercise the duties of it.
The next summer he died, little regretted by anybody,
but least of all by His Majesty, who saved 30002. a-year
by it

Notwithstanding all the menaces thrown out by the
Opposition previous to the opening of this session, and
the vigorous attacks expected consequently to be made
upon the ministry, no session ever passed off more
quietly ; nor did the business of the Court any year
ever meet with fewer rubs.

This was owing principally to the Opponents laying
their chief stress on a point full as unpopular as any
proposal that ever came firom the Administration, which
was bringing in a bill to make the commissions of the
officers of the army commissions for life ; to take away
the power of breaking any officer of the army from
the Crown, and to lodge that power solely in a court
martial. For the arguments against this proposal I
refer my readers to a pamphlet written by Lord Her-
vey, at the desire of the King and Queen, corrected by
Sir Robert Walpole, and entitled * The Conduct of the
Opposition and the Tendency of Modern Patriotism,

"f See ante, p. 167.

1784. DTTKE OP BOLTON. 283

&C.' ; which pamphlet I shall put into the Appendix to
these Memoirs.® The bill to make the officers' com-
missions for life was moved in both Houses the same
day, and rejected in both by a great majority.

Immediately after the bill was rejected a motion was
made in both Houses to address the King, to know who
advised him to take away the regiments of the Duke of
Bolton and Lord Cobham, which motion had the same
fiite as its predecessor the bilL In the debate upon
this second question, the Duke of Argyle, with the
Duke of Bolton staring in his face all the while he was
speakings took occasion to say, he could not imagine
what lords meant by coupling these two men together
when they talked of the hardship of their being broke ;
^^ They are both men (said he) of great quality, it is true ;
and it is very certain that two colonels were broke, but
of these two colonels I know of but one soldier." There
had been an old grudge between the Duke of Argyle
and the Duke of Bolton, which provoked the first to
say this ; but the Duke of Argyle was not commended
for it, it being thought no great honour for him to try
his wit or his courage with the Duke of Bolton, who
was so little suspected of either.^ Besides, as there
were many men of rank, honour, courage, and character
at present in the army, who had never served abroad
(a necessary consequence of twenty years' peace), the
Duke of Argyle did not make his court much to them
by this definition of a soldier, which was (when he was
called upon by the Duke of Bolton to explain himself),
that he could reckon nobody a soldier that had never

8 For the reasons already- given, p. 144, this pamphlet is not reprinted
* See ante, p. 211, n.

^

284 LORD HERVEYS MEMOIRS. Chap. XIH.

served but in peace. In short, the Duke of Argyle got
no honour by offering this injury; and the Duke of
Bolton only lost none in his tame, cool manner of
resenting it, because he had none to lose.

The bill to make the commissions of the officers for
life was brought into the House of Lords by the Duke
of Marlborough, to whom the King, whilst he was Lord
Sunderland, had always shown a family dislike on his
father's account; but this step so strengthened his Ma-
jesty's enmity, that " scoundrel, rascal, or blackguard,"
whenever he spoke of him in private after that occur-
rence, never failed of being tacked to his name.^® The
Duke of Bedford," who had married Lady Dye Spencer,
the Duke of Marlborough's sister, rose little better in
the King's good graces than his brother-in-law, being
equally violent at this time in his opposition to the
Court, and, like the Duke of Marlborough, under the
absolute direction and government of Lord Carteret

These two young dukes were of great consideration
from their quality and their estates^ and were as much
alike in pride, violence of temper, and their public con-
duct, as they were different in their ways of thinking
and acting in private life : the Duke of Marlborough
was profuse, and never looked into his affairs; the
Duke of Bedford covetous, and the best economist in
the world : the Duke of Bedford was of such a turn as
to have been able to live within his fortune if it had

10 May not some of this enmity be attributed to the intended marriage of
Lady Diana with the Prince of Wales (ante, p. 236, n.)— a secret with
which Lord Hervey was perhaps not acquainted ?

>i John, fourth Duke, bom in 1710, married in 1731, who for the rest of
this reign and the beginning of the next played a considerable part in the
political world.

1734. DTJKES OF BEDFORD AND MARMOBOUGH. 285

been fifty times less ; and the Duke of Marlborough to
have run his out had it been fifty times greater. This
made Lord Hervey often pay his court to the King
(who hated them both) by saying his Majesty would
in a very few years see these two men as inconsiderable
as any two in the kingdom — the one from giving no-
things and the other from having nothing to give.
These two brothers were as unlike in their understand-
ings as in the particulars I have already mentioned:
the understanding of the Duke of Marlborough wals
quite uncultivated, and that of the Duke of Bedforc
extremely cultivated without being the better for it:^
the one was incapable of application, the other hadyQ
great deal. The Duke of Marlborough wanted marce-
rials, the Duke of Bedford to know how to use them?'
and as the one in company, conscious of his ignorance,
was generally diffident and silent, the other was always
assured, talkative, and decisive : so that the Duke of
Marlborough was sensible he wanted knowledge, whilst
the Duke of Bedford had knowledge and was not sensi-
ble he wanted parts.

The proposal I have mentioned, of making the offi-
cers' commissions for life, being not agreeable to the
people, and a thing that seemed rather calculated per-
sonally to insult the King than to distress or attack his
ministers, posterity will naturally be surprised that so
many great and able men as were now embarked in
the Opposition could make so injudicious a step and
pitch upon so improper a point to labour. It proceeded
in part from a desire to make a compliment to Lord
Gobham, and to revive the clamour raised on the dis-
mission of so old and creditable an officer ; but the

/

r^

2S6 LORD HERYEY'S MEUOmS. Chap. XHI.

chief reason of it was this — the Opposition did not yet
despair of gaining Lord Scarborough over to their
party ; and Lord Chesterfield having told them all that
in the late reign, when this thing was very near being
brought into Parliament, Lord Scarborough had de*
clared vehemently for it, they all concluded that Lord
Scarborough would be catched in this business, as he
had been in the South Sea affair the preceding year,
and think himself bound to promote that in public
which he had professed approving in private.

But this scheme, well as it was laid, did not take
effect; for Lord Scarborough not only voted but spoke
very warmly against the bill. He owned in his speech
that he had formerly been of a different opinion in this
matter when cursorily examined, but that upon mature
deliberation he had changed his mind ; and though he
once only considered this scheme in the light of a point
gained upon the Grown that would incapacitate any
prince from abusing this power of displacing officers,
yet, when he came to reflect on the inconveniences fliat
would attend the lodging that power in the hands pro-
posed, he found those inconveniences much greater, and
attended with more danger to the liberties of the people,
than leaving it where it was, as it would create an in-
dependency in the army that might in time make it
capable of overturning the whole civil government

However, Lord Scarborough was not satisfied with
this public declaration ; he was afraid, notwithstanding,
that people might impute his speaking and acting in
this manner to interest, rather than conviction, and
resolved to prove that interest was not his motive. In
order to do so, the morning before the debate came on

1734. LORD SCARBOROUGH'S DIFnCXTLTIES. 287

he wrote a letter to the King to tell him the situation
he was in, and, as the only way he had left to show the
world, who might be busy with his character on this
occasion, that his behaviour was the result of his opi-
nion, and not of any mean complaisance to keep his
employments, he begged to resign them ; assuring the
King at the same time that he did not take this step
from any mixture of disgust or want of zeal for his ser^
vice ; that he was as firmly attached as ever in affection
to his Majesty's person, and as zealous to promote
and as ready to declare he approved all his measures
as formerly; that he had not the least complaint
against any of his ministers ; and that he would con-
vince the world, by doubling if possible his assiduity in
his Majesty's service in Parliament, that he had no
other reason for taking this resolution of quitting his
employments but to avoid the trap which he saw laid
for him, and out of which he had no other way of ex-
tricating himself with honour and reputation.

The day after he wrote this letter the King desired
to see him, made him great professions of kindness and
esteem, and insisted on his taking a few days more to
consider of this business before he came to any final de-
termination. The Queen saw him too, and talked to him
in the same strain : she said afterwards that she never
saw any man in such agitation and perplexity in her
life ; and that Lord Scarborough had told her he had
not possessed himseli^ or been able to sleep, since he
knew of this business being certainly to come into the
House, from the anxiety he was in, and the not know-
ing how to act in such a manner as should do justice
both to his opinion and to his character. Sir Bobert

288 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. Xm.

Walpole, the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Felham, and
Lord Lonsdale, all pressed him extremely to change
his resolution, saying it would certainly be thought by
all mankind that discontent had induced him to take
it ; consequently, his persisting in it must hurt those to
whom he wished well, and give credit and strength to
the party who endeavoured to distress the Court and
destroy the Administration.

These representations so far prevailed, that he was
persuaded to keep his regiment and remain of the
Cabinet Council but his Mastership of the Horse he
resigned in form the following week.

The parting between his master and him on this
occasion was so tender, that they embraced like equals
and wept like lovers. The Opposition triumphed a
good deal on the first news of Lord Scarborough's
having quitted, but their triumph was short, for he soon
after took occasion in the House to declare himself
more warmly in the interest of the Court than he had
ever done before, and continued so to do, upon every
point in debate, during the whole session.

This made every man who opposed the Court con-
demn his conduct, and say he had tied himself down a
greater slave to the Administration by this strange, in-
judicious manner of quitting an employment than any
the most mercenary tool had ever done by accepting one.
Some said it was a sort of Don Quixotism in politics ;
others, who had a mind to be more abusive, called him
the Sir Paul Methuen of the House of Lords ; and Sir

IS The great officers of the Household were at this time usually mem*
bers of what was called the Cabinet Council. See at the end of the Me-
moirs Lord Hervey's account of the Cabinet.

1734. KING'S CHARACrER. 289

Eobert Walpole himself in speaking of Lord Scar-
borough's behaviour at this time to Lord Hervey,
laughed, shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and
pointed to his forehead.^'

The Dukeof Bichmond asked the King immediately
to succeed Lord Scarborough, and the King was not
averse to granting his request any fiirther than he was
always averse to giving anything to anybody. Many
ingredients concurred to form this reluctance in his
Majesty to bestowing. One was that, taking all his
notions from a German measure, he thought every man
who served him in England overpaid ; another was, that
while employments were vacant he saved the salary; ;
but the most prevalent of all was his never having the I
least inclination to oblige. I do not believe there ever f
lived a man to whose temper benevolence was so abso-
lutely a stranger. It was a sensation that, I dare say,
never accompanied anyone act of his power; so that
whatever good he did was either extorted from him, or
was the adventitious effect of some self-interested act of
policy: consequently, if any seeming favour he conferred/
ever obliged the receiver, it must have been because/
the man on whom it fell was ignorant of the motives
from which the giver bestowed. I remember Sir Eo-
bert Walpole saying once, in speaking to me of the
King, that to talk with him of compassion, considera-
tion of past services, charity, and bounty, was making
use of words that with him had no meaning. This /
habit of keeping employments vacant drew him often

IS Lord Scarborough's death soon after, by his own hand, as well as the
inconsistency of his semi-resignation, and some other circumstances, seem
to justify Sir Robert's suspicion. See Suffolk Cor,^ ii. 87.

VOL. I. U

290 LORD HBRYErS HEMOIBS. Chap. HIL

into great difficulties, and was necessarily attended with
many inconveniences; for, as delay on such occa-
sions always begets competitors, so of course it not
only increases the number of the refused, and conse-
quently of the disobliged, whenever the disposal is
made, but also lessens, if not cancels, the obligation
even towards them whose solicitation at last prevails;
people very naturally and very reasonably thinking
themselves not bound to do much towards repaying
any benefit when they have been made to do a great
deal towards earning it: they consider all that previous
trouble as so much advanced in part of payment, and
never fail to make allowances for it when they come to
balance the account in what they think they remain in
debt to their benefactor.

The King's neither giving the Duke of Bichmond
this employment immediately, nor directly promising
it, embarrassed his Majesty afterwards extremely, when
Lord Fembroke^^ asked it, as it laid him imder the
necessity of giving the preference to one of them in his
choice, when he need have given the preference only to
the first comer, which the last cannot or ought not ever
to take ill.

Lord Pembroke's pretensions to this office were cer-
tainly very reasonable, as he was a man of great quality,
of an extreme good character, beloved by everybody
who knew him, and had served the King twenty
years in the bedchamber, without any other prefer-
ment than a regiment, in exchange for which he had

1^ Henry, ninth Earl. Lord Chesterfield, who was very anxious for
Lord Pembroke's success, says (Suff. Corr., vol. ii., p. 81) that the
question had been decided in the Duke's &vour as early as July, though
not announced till Lord Pembroke was satisfied.

1784. DTJKB OF RICHMOND, 291

quitted a troop of Guards, for which he had paid
10,000/.

The Duke of Eichmond's plea was not weaker as to
character, and was stronger as to quality, especially at
this Court, where the diflFerence of coronets was often
much more considered than the diflFerence of the heads
that wore them. He made great expenses, too, in
elections, and was thoroughly zealous both for the Go-
vernment and the Administration. There never lived
a man of a more amiable composition ; he was friendly,
benevolent, generous, honourable, and thoroughly noble
in his way of acting, talking, and thinking; he had
constant spirits, was very entertaining, and had a great
deal of knowledge, though, not having had a school-
education, he was a long while reckoned ignorant by the
generality of the world, who are as apt to call every
man a blockhead that does not understand Greek and
Latin, as they are to think many of those no block-
heads who understand nothing else. His being grand-
son to King Charles II., I must confess, prejudiced
people much more reasonably against his understand-
ing,^* and contributed extremely to its being underrated
till he came to be thoroughly known ; for, as fish with
wings, instead of fins, would hardly be a greater prodigy
than a Stuart with sense, so people had the utmost
difficulty without their own auricular conviction to con-
ceive there could be one Lot of sense out of that Sodom
of fools.

IB This IS surely a strange remark when coupled with the name of
Charles II., who was oertunly no *' fool ;" it was prompted, I think, by
Lord Hervey *s dislike of his colleague the Duke of Grafton . < < There was/'
says Horace Walpole, ** a mortal antipathy between the Duke of Grafton
and Lord Hervey, and the Court was often on the point of being disturbed
by their enmities." — Remxnis,

u2

292 LORD HEBVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XHL

I cannot help mentioning, before I quit this head of
the King's ungiving disposition, two instances, which
I ihink such strong proofs of it, that, to people who
know not the millions of corroborating testimonies one
might bring, they would be alone sufficient to demon-
strate it.

The instances I mean are my Lord Lifford, and his
sister, Lady Charlotte deRoussie.^' These two people,
born in France, having more religion than sense," left
their native country on account of being Protestants ;
and being of great quality, and not in great circum-
stances, had, during four reigns, subsisted upon the
scanty charity of the English Court: they were
constantly — every night in the country, and three
nights in the week in town — alone with the King and
Queen for an hour or two before they went to bed,
during which time the King walked about and talked
to the brother of armies, or to the sister of genealo-
gies, whilst the Queen knotted and yawned, till from
yawning she came to nodding, and from nodding to
snoring.

These two poor miserable Court drudges were in
more constant waiting than any of the pages of the
back stairs, were very simple and very quiet, did
nobody any hurt, nor anybody but his Majesty any
pleasure, who paid them so ill for all their assiduity and
slavery, that they were not only not in affluence, but

16 They were the children of Frederic Charles de Roje de la Roche-
foucaud, Count de Roye et de Il(nicy, a French Protestant, who came into
England in 1668, and was created Earl of Lifford in Ireland. Lady
Charlotte de Roye, " commonly called de Houctf,*' was Gouvemante to
the younger children of George II.

17 It must not be forgotten that Lord Hervey was so unfortunate as to
be what was called a Freethinker, and never fuls to sneer at religion.

1734. THE QUEEN. 293

laboured under the disagreeable burdens of small debts
(which a thousand pounds would have paid), and had
not an allowance from the Court that enabled them to
appear there even in the common decency of clean
clothes. The King, nevertheless, was always saying
how well he loved them, and calling them the best
people in the world. But, though he never forgot their
goodness, he never remembered their poverty ; and by
giving them so much of his time, which nobody but
him would have given them, and so little of his money,
which everybody but him in his situation would have
afforded them, he gave one just as good an opinion
of his understanding by what he bestowed, as he did
of his generosity by what he withheld. The Queen,
whose most glaring merit was not that of giving,
was certainly with regard to this poor woman as
blameable as the King. For the playthings of
princes, let them be ever so trifling, ought always to
be gilt, those who contribute to l^eir pleasure having a
right to their bounty. To most people, however, it
was a matter of wonder how the King and Queen could
have such persons constantly with them. The truth of
the case was, that the King had no taste for better
company, and the Queen, though she had a better
tast^ was forced to mortify her own to please his. Her
predominant passion was pride, and the darling plea-
sure of her soul was power; but she was forced to
gratify the one and gain the other, as some people do
health, by a strict and painiul TSffime^ which few
besides herself could have had patience to support,
or resolution to adhere to. She was at least seven
or eight hours tete-a-tete with the King every day,

V

294 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. Xm.

during which time she was generally saying what she
did not think, assenting to what she did not believe,
and praising what she did not approve ; for they were
seldom of the same opinion, and he too fond of his own
for her ever at first to dare to controvert it (" consUii
quamvis egregii quod ipse non afferret, inimicus:'* —
" An enemy to any counsel, however excellent, which
he himself had not su^ested." — Tadtus) ;^® she used to
give him her opinion as jugglers do a card, by changing
it imperceptibly, and making him believe he held
the same with that he first pitched upon. But that
which made these tSte-a-tStes seem heaviest was that
he neither liked reading nor being read to (unless it
was to sleep) : she was forced, like a spider, to spin out
of her own bowels all the conversation with which the
fly was taken. However, to all this she submitted for
the sake of power, and for the reputation of having it ;
for the vanity of being thought to possess what she
desired was equal to the pleasure of the possession
itself. But, either for the appearance or the reality,
she knew it was absolutely necessary to have interest in
her husband, as she was sensible that interest was the
measure by which people would always judge of her
power. Her every thought, word, and act therefore
tended and was calculated to preserve her influence
there ; to him she sacrificed her time, for him she mor-
tified her inclination ; she looked, spake, and breathed
but for him, like a weathercock to every capricious
blast of his uncertain temper, and governed him (if

18 Lord Hervey in his quotations sometimes makes variances from the re-
ceived texts, which, being either slight or made to suit the subject, I leave
unaltered. He generally accompanies them with a translation : where he
sometimes omits, I have supplied it.

1734. THB QUEEN. 295

such influence so gained can bear the name of govern-
ment) by being as great a slave to him thus ruled, as
any other wife could be to a man who ruled her. For
all the tedious hours she spent then in watching him
whilst he slept, or the heavier task of entertaining
him whilst he was awake, her single consolation was in
reflecting she had power, and that people in coffee-
houses and ruelles^^ were saying she governed this coun-
try, without knowing how dear the government of it
cost her.*^

19 " Rudles: espace qu'on laisse entl^ le lit et la muraille. On appelait
autrefois rudles lea alcoves, et en g^n^ral les lieux pards, oii les dames,
soit au lit, soit debout, recevaient leurs visites.*' — Diet. Franqais. Hence
the word came to be used generally for any circle of chit-chat or gossiping.

so It seems at first sight unfair to exclude, so completely as Lord Hervey
does, the possibility that duty and affection towards so fond a husband— the
father of her many children — might have had some share in the Queen's
submissive and patient conduct ; but we shall see, by and by, that she con-
descended to compliances with the King's temper and passions that cannot
be thus palliated. . tr

\

296 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

CHAPTER XIV.

Proceedings in Parliament — The Prince of Wales's AfSairs and his Cha-
racter— Increase of the Army — ^Vote of Confidence — Lord Hervey
disapproves of both — High state of Literature — Marriage of the Princess
Royal — Figure of the Bridegroom — Pretensions of the Irish Peers —
Horace Walpole — End of the Session — Speaker Onslow Treasurer of
the Navy — Lord Stair dismissed — Prince and Princess of Orange depart
— Miss Vane — Elections — Dissatisfiiction of the King and Queen — Lord
Isla and the Duke of Argyle.

But to return from this digression to the proceedings
of the Parliament this winter, I must relate how the
three points most apprehended went off The debt
of the navy the Opponents could make nothing of.
1,200,000/. was given out of the sinking-fimd towards
the discharge of part of it; and this in debate was
called a misapplication of the sinking-fimd; but nobody
in either House pretended to find any material fault in
the manner in which the debt had been incurred — ^not
that there were no faults to be found, but the intricacy
of the account^ and the ignorance of those who had un-
dertaken to sifi; it, kept those faults from the light.

The bill for Triennial Parliaments was proposed in
the House of Commons [13*A MarcK]^ but rejected by
a great majority [247 to 184], and never brought at
all into the House of Lords.

The Prince's aflairwas ofl«n talked of in private, but
never mentioned in either House. He contrived to
irritate the Court by alarming them with caballing, and
to disoblige those with whom he caballed by stopping

1784. PMNCB OF WALES'S CHAKACTER. 297

there, and not giving his consent to have it prosecuted
in Parliament The Tories and discontented Whigs
were so dissatisfied with his conduct, that they abused
him more than they did his father ; and said that he
had only drawn them in to make the offer of standing
by him, that he might make a merit to his father of
rejecting that offer and betraying them. On the other
hand, his father and mother, though they were fright-
ened out of their senses whenever they thought their
son's name was near being mentioned in Parliament,
whenever these fears abated, treated him in the most
provoking manner, and spoke of him in the most
contemptuous terms.

The Prince's character at his first coming over,
though little more respectable, seemed much more
amiable than, upon his opening himself further and
being better known, it turned out to be ; for though there
appeared nothing in him to be admired, yet there seemed
nothing in him to be hated — neither anything great
nor anything vicious ; his behaviour was something that
gained one's good wishes, though it gave one no esteem
for him ; for his best qualities, whilst they prepossessed
one the most in his favour, always gave one a degree of
contempt for him at the same time ; his carriage, whilst
it seemed engaging to those who did not examine it,
appearing mean to those who did : for though his man-
ners had the show of benevolence from a good deal of
natural or habitual civility, yet his cajoling everybody,
and almost in an equal degree, made those things which
might have been thought favours, if more judiciously
or sparingly bestowed, lose all their weight He car-
ried this affectation of general benevolence so far that
he often condescended below the character of a Prince ;

t3

298 LORD HERVBrS MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

and as people attributed this iamiliarity to popular,
and not particular motives, so it only lessened their
respect without increasing their good will, and instead
. of giving them good impressions of his humanity, only
gave them ill ones of his sincerity. He was indeed as
false as his capacity would allow him to be, and was
more capable in that walk than in any other, never
having the least hesitation, from principle or fear of
Aiture detection, in telling any lie that served his pre-
sent purpose. He had a much weaker understanding,
and, if possible, a more obstinate temper, than his
father ; that is, more tenacious of opinions he had once
formed, though less capable of ever forming right ones.
Had he had one grain of merit at the bottom of his
heart, one should have had compassion for him in the
situation to which his miserable poor head soon reduced
him; for his case, in short, was this : — he had a father
that abhorred him, a mother that despised him, sisters
that betrayed him, a brother set up against him, and a
set of servants that neglected him, and were neither of
use, nor capable of being of use to him, nor desirous of
being so.

Dodington,^ who governed him, at present was afraid
of having him quite reconciled to the King, or quite
broke with him, foreseeing that in either of these
situations the Prince would be inevitably taken out of

1 George Babb, author of the celebrated Diaiy, the aon, according to
one version, of an apothecary, or, according to another, of an Irish fortune-
hunter (perhaps the same person). He inherited from his uncle, George
Dodington, a great estate in Dorsetshire, and assumed his name {caUey
. p. 38). After quarrelling with the Prince, as we shall see presently, he
was subsequently reconciled to him, and in 1749 became again his prime
adviser. After the Prince's death in 1750, he attached himself to the Prin-
cess Dowager; and George III. rewarded his services to his parents by
creating him, in 1761, Xx>rd Melcombe. He died in July, 1762.

1784. ARMY ESTIMATES. 299

•

his hands. In the one he would be governed by his
mother, and consequently by Sir Bobert Walpole ; in
the other by Pulteney, Lord Chesterfield, or Lord
Carteret, who, as heads of the party, could never have
submitted to act a subordinate part to Mr. Dodington,
whom no man but himself would have thought of a
rank above them, v

Other questions that were started by the Opposition
during this session, as they were too immaterial to give
much disturbance, so they were of too little conse^
quence to be repeated. Nor ought anybody to wonder
that things were no better concerted or managed
against the Court, when those who naturally ought to
have acted in concert for the management of these
affitirs were most of them as ill with one another as
with those they opposed. Lord Carteret and Lord
Bolingbroke had no correspondence at all ; Mr. Pul-
teney and Lord Bolingbroke hated one another ; Lord
Carteret and Pulteney were jealous of one another ;
Sir William Wyndham and Pulteney the same; whilst
Lord Chesterfield had a little correspondence with
them all, but was confided in by none of them.

In pursuance of estimates given in from the Crown,
20,000 men were voted this year in Parliament for the
sea service, and an augmentation of 1800 for the land
forces. The demand for the sea service met with no
opposition, and the other with much less than it would
have done had the true reason for asking such an aug-
mentation been avowed or known.

The pretence for asking it was this : — Two years be-
fore, when the Spaniards made their ridiculous expe-
dition to Oran, the garrison of Gibraltar consisted only
of 2400 men ; and as Spain, whilst she was making

300 LOBD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Ceap. XIV.

these vast preparations and armaments both by sea and
land, thought it proper not to declare for what purpose
they were designed, the English ministers, not knowing
but some new attack upon Gibraltar might be intended,
sent over three regiments upon the English' establish-
ment, in all 1800 men, to strengthen that garrison.

Soon after, when the Spanish storm broke upon the
African coast, and Gibraltar was thought in safety,
these troops were ordered back ; but, before those orders
were executed, new troubles arising in Europe on the
death of the King of Poland, and the turn Spain would
take not being known, the orders for the return of these
three regiments were retracted. The demand now
made in Parliament therefore was explained to be in
reality an augmentation for the garrison of Gibraltar,
since these 1800 men were only desired to complete
the number voted the year before for the English esta-
blishment, and to supply those three regiments the
King had thought fit to remove from home for the
security of that place.

This sounded plausibly ; and in order to make the
grant of this demand come easier, instead of three new
regiments being raised, it was proposed to make the
augmentation by the cheaper way of adding private
men only to every company.

But the true reason of this augmentation was to
secure the Ministry and strengthen the hands of the
Government in case of insurrections, or any disturb-
ances that might arise, whilst the nation was in the
ferment of elections for a new Parliament. Sir Robert
Walpole's apprehensions were very strong upon this

* The armj used to be voted on Englithy Irish^ and Colonial establish-
mentB.

1784. VOTE OP CONFEDBNCB. 301

score, and his reason for making the augmentation by
adding private men to corps, instead of raising new
entire corps, was not because he thought it the cheapest
method, but because he looked upon it as the speediest
and most effectual ; new-raised regiments being in his
opinion never of any use the first year, and the first
year in this case being the time when he expected to
have most use for them.'

The King and the Queen, who always considered
soldiers as the principal supports both of their grandeur
and their power, were glad of any pretence to increase
their number, and caressed Sir Robert Walpole ex-
tremely for tracing out a way by which a thing they
were so desirous of, and the whole nation so averse to,
could be done with so little difficulty. So that he con-
trived to have all the merit of inventing this scheme to
their Majesties, and to avoid all the odium of it among
those of his adherents who disliked it, by saying it was
a point on which the King was so peremptory and so
obstinate, that it was impossible for him to avoid giving
in to it ; by which means he at once made his court to
the King and Queen, his excuse to his firiends, and a pro-
vision for his own security.

But this provision did not yet seem sufficient, and

s All this seems strange irom a ministerial pen. A war had broken out
on the Continent that seemed likely to embroil England and Spain — ^the pre-
paration at Gibraltar was therefore indispensable. As to the motive Lord
Hervey attributes to Walpole, it is enough to observe that the bill passed
in March, and the dissolution was in April, so that the new levies, if such a
thing were ever credible, were not very likely to be employed at these elec-
tions. The opposition tone which Lord Hervey here and hereabouts
takes, and whidi is in direct contradiction to his votes and speeches, may
be attributed to his ill humour, subsequently avowed, at not being in
political office : ho cavils at the decisions of a Cabinet to which he thought
he ought to belong.

S02 LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XJX.

before the dissolution of the Parliament, at the very end
of the session, he made this expiring Parliament on its
deathbed leave him a legacy that was a foil antidote
to all his fears. This legacy (a vote of credit being an
obnoxious title) was christened a vote of confidence — a
name it richly deserved, for never in time of peace was
so unlimited a confidence lodged in the hands of the
Crown before. This vote of confidence not only gave
the King a power during the interval of Parliament
to augment his forces without limitation, both by land
and sea, but a promissory note was tacked to it, of
making good any engagements made or to be made
by his Majesty for the interest, honour, and safety
of the nation, or as the exigence of affitirs should
require. Authority by Act of Parliament also was
given him to apply what sum he thought fit out of
all the money granted for the current service of
the year for these purposes, and all the security the
Parliament had for no misapplication being made of
this credit, nor any abuse of this power, was a little
cajolery (inserted at the end of the message sent
from the Crown to make this demand) that promised
an account should be laid before the next Parliament
of the use that had been made of the generosity of
its predecessor.

This message was sent to both Houses, and the de-
bates in both Houses upon it were very warm. Those
who objected to this unlimited confidence being placed
in the Crown said, though this vote was not called a
vote of credit, yet it was in effect the most extensive,
and consequently the most improper credit that was
ever given to the Crown ; that it would have been more

1734. VOTE OF CONITDBNCR 303

for the honour of Parliament, and less dangerous to the
liberties of the people, to have voted any sum of money
or any number of troops in the common Parliamentary
methods at the beginning of the session, than to allow
one man or one shilling to be raised in a manner so
repugnant to the nature of our Constitution ; that it
was sapping the foundation and defeating the very end
of Parliaments, as it was making a farce of granting
money upon estimates, if, by an unappropriating clause,
a power was afterwards given to the King of applying
what was beneficially granted for one use to any other
purpose he should think fit ; and if promises were made^
when that money was squandered in unnecessary ex-
penses^ that they would afterwards find more, to defiray
those charges that were necessary.

It was more than hinted, too, that this credit was
asked by the King only to get money to buy a Parlia-
ment at the next elections, which Parliament would
aftierwards no doubt have gratitude enough to pass any
account brought by their benefactor, or discharge any
debt contracted in their service.

Those who spoke for this vote of confidence said that
the reason why more money and troops were not de-
manded at the beginning of the session was^ that» as the
King could not know beforehand what situation the
affairs of Europe would be in at the opening of the cam-
paign, so the most that could possibly be wanted must
have been asked had the demand been made then,
whereas, a discretionary power being now lodged in the
Crown to measure the expenses of the nation by the
necessity of the occasion, and to proportion it to the
call, the least that could be wanted might be applied :

30 i LOBD HEBYEY'S HEMOIBS. Chap. XIY.

consequently, in one case the nation might have been
put to an unnecessary charge ; in the other, without an
abuse of this power supposed, there need not one
farthing be expended more than the circumstances of
the times absolutely require.

That as to the misapplication of money, as an account
was to be laid before Parliament of all that was dis-
bursed in consequence of this vote, so the Parliament
would be as good judges, by a subsequent account as by
a previous estimate, whether the expense was necessarily
incurred or not : and a minister would be as much re-
sponsible with his head for any abuse that should be
made of it as he would be for taking any sum of money
granted for one purpose and applying it to another.

It was ftirther urged that, the French fleet lying then
in sight of our coasts, if the enemies to this Govern-
ment had counselled France to take the opportunity
of the confusion of elections and the interval of Parlia-
ment to give us any molestation, it would not be very
advisable to seem improvident against such an under-
taking; nor could it be called a blow to the Consti-
tution for the Parliament previously to counsel the
King in such circumstances to do that in defence of
his crown and people, which, if occasion required, he
must do without their counsel.

After a very long debate in both Houses, the question
was carried in both by a great majority. In the House
of Lords a very strong protest was made against it, but
strong protests were grown so frequent that they were
little regarded. The only use they were of was, when
they were printed at the end of the session, and dis-
persed like pamphlets about the country, to raise clamour

1734. MARRIAGE OP THE PRINCESS ROYAL. 305

against the Administration, and create disaffection to the
Government; and as these ennobled " Oo/V^m^/' signed
with the names of thirty or forty people of the first
quality and consideration in the kingdom, tallied with
the anonymous " Craftameriy** so these annual invectives
gave weight to those weekly libels, and added the force
of authority to the natural insinuation of censure and
calumny.

Nor was writing ever in England at a higher pitch,
either for learning, strength of diction, or elegance of
style, than in this reign. All the good writing, too, was
confined to political topics,* either of civil, military, or
ecclesiastical government, and all the tracts on these
subjects printed in pamphlets. It might very properly
be called the Augustan age of England for this kind of
writing ; not that there was any similitude between the
two princes who presided in the Boman and English
Augustan ages besides their names, for George Ati-
gustos neither loved learning nor encouraged men of
letters, nor were there any Maecenases about him. There
was another very material difference too between these
two Augustuses — as personal courage was the only
quality necessary to form a great prince which the
one was suspected to want, so I fear it was the only
one the other was ever thought to possess.

I must now give an account of the marriage of the
Princess Boyal, which I ought to have done previously

* Though many of the pamphlets of the day were very able, and Lord
Hervey's own amongst the ablest, yet it is too much to say that " all good
¥nriting was confined to political topics." And in truth, the two preceding
reigns are more commonly admitted to have been our Augustan age— while
that of George II. is generally thought the lowest of any in literary merit.

VOL. I. X

306 LOKD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XTV.

to the account of the vote of confidence, as it preceded
it about three weeks.

The Prince of Orange returned to Somerset House
from the Bath the beginning of March in perfect health,
and on the 14th of that month he was married. A
covered gallery (through which the procession passed)
was built from the King's apartment quite round the
palace garden to the little French chapel adjoining
to St. James's House (where the ceremony was per-
formed).* The gallery held four thousand people, was
very finely illuminated, and, by the help of three thou-
sand men who were that day upon guard, the whole
was performed with great regularity and order, as well
as splendour and magnificence. Lord Hervey had the
care of the ceremonial, and drew the plan for the order
of the procession, with which nobody but the Irish
peers was dissatisfied. They insisted on walking in
the procession, every class of them, at the end of the
English and Scotch peers of the same rank ; but as the
English Barons would not give place to the Irish Earls
and Viscounts, Lord Hervey chose rather to disoblige
these than the English peers, who declared they would
not walk at all if any of the Irish were placed before
them. Upon Lord Hervey 's sticking to the point
of leaving them quite out of the procession unless they
would walk all together in a separate body (which he
offered and they refused), they presented a petition to

ft The old Duchess of Marlborough, who could see this gallery from her
windows, and who liked none of the parties to the pageant, was indignant
at its standing so long during the delay of the wedding. ** I wonder,'* she
asked, ** when my neighbour George will remove his orange-chest,** —
*' which in fact," adds Horace VTalpole, who was old enough to remem-
ber it, ** it did resemhle "^-Remimscences.

1734. IBISH PEERS. 307

the King to do them what they called justice. The
King and the Queen were both inclined to comply
with their request ; but upon Lord Hervey's telling the
Queen that if they were indulged in this demand no
English peer below the rank of an Earl* would appear
at all, and that the whole body of the English peerage
would take it ill, the King only referred the petition of
the Irish peers to the Cabinet Council, gave no answer
to it, and let the matter drop. The House of Lords
was not thought at this time to be in such a temper or
situation with regard to the Court as made it advisable
to run any risk of disobliging them (for this dispute
arose in October, when the wedding-day was first ap-
pointed, and before the Parliament met). All the
indignation of the Irish peers fell on Lord Hervey ; the
Duke of Graflon (the Chamberlain), who loved tem-
porising, having insinuated to them that he had nothing
to do with this affair, and that Lord Hervey had taken
the whole into his hands. When Lord Gage, an Irish
Viscount, and a petulant, silly, busy, meddling, profli-
gate fellow, asked Lord Hervey why he had made no
mention of the Irish peers in the ceremonial. Lord
Hervey said, because, the Irish House of Lords being
now sitting, he concluded they were all at Dublin, and
that no Englishman could suppose them capable of
being in two places at once.'' Lord Gage said it was
very hard they might not have the same privileges on
this occasioii that they had on others. Lord Hervey
answered that the last time this thing had been disputed

0 There being then no Irish peers above the rank of Earl.
7 This pleasantry was, after sdl, the best argument that could be alleged
against the Irish peers.

X 2

308 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chaf. XIV.

was on the creation of the Knights of the Bath ; that
the younger sons of English Earls had then refused to
give place to the Irish Earl of Inchiquin and the Irish
Viscount Tyrconnel ; and that the expedient then found
out to adjust the dispute was giving the ribbon to these
two noble Lords by themselves the day after all the
others received it: if, therefore, the Irish Lords pleased
to terminate the present dispute the same way, he said
he had no objection to it ; the gallery should be left
standing, and the Irish Lords, if they pleased, should
walk the next day. Lord Gage and all the other Irish
Lords to whom he repeated this conversation were very
angry, as may easily be imagined, with Lord Hervey,
and, had they not said a thousand impertinent things
before of Lord Hervey, he would certainly have been
in the wrong to have said this. The Scotch and Eng-
lish Lords, however, were extremely pleased with his
conduct in this affair, and as much displeased with my
Lord Chamberlain's ; applauding the one for having so
strenuously asserted the rights of the Peers of Great
Britain, and equally condemning the other for having
shown himself so ready to give them up. His Grace
acted on this occasion as he did on most others, which
was to decline acting at all, and consequently to disoblige
those most who were most in the right ; people who
have justice on their side always looking upon neu-
trality as injury, and being to the full as much piqued
against those whose business it is to stand by them for
not declaring for them as if they declared against
them.

The King once told the Duke of Grafton upon an-
other occasion, that his Grace was always balancing

1734. MARRIAGB OP THE PRINCESS ROYAL. 309

whether he should speak truth or flatter those whom
truth would disoblige.

His Grace's maxim was never to give a direct an-
swer either to the most material or most indifferent
question ; so that the natural cloud of his understanding, j
thickened by the artificial cloud of his mistaken Court
policy, made his meaning alw^s as unintelligible as his ! .^
conversation was unentertaining. By coming very \ "
young into the great world, being of great quality, and i
formerly very handsome, he had always kept the best j
company ; and by living perpetually at Court he had
all the routine of that style of conversation which is a
sort of gold-leaf, that is a great embellishment where it
is joined to anything else, but makes a very poor
figure by itself. To pass one's time with people who /
have only that agrSment^ in my opinion surfeits one as/
soon as feeding upon sugar ; which, though it heightens!
the relish of many things it is mixed with, would)
quickly turn one's stomach if one was to eat it alone.

The hour appointed for all those who were to walk
in the procession to assemble was seven* at night. The
bridegroom, with all the men, was in the Great Council
Chamber ; the bride,' with all the ladies, in the Great
Drawing-room ; and the King and Queen, with their
children and servants, in the King's lesser Drawing-
room. The Prince of Orange's whole retinue was as
magnificent as gold and silver varied in brocade lace
and embroidery could make them, and the jewels he
gave the Princess of immense value, particularly the
necklace, which was so large that twenty-two diamonds
made the whole round of her neck.® * *
• Lord Hervej had thought it worth while to insert here the order of

310 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

The chapel was fitted up with an extreme good taste,
and as much finery as velvets, gold and silver tissue,
galloons, fi*inges, tassels, gilt lustres and sconces could
give. The King spared no expense on this occasion ;
but if he had not loved a show better than his daughter,
he would have chosen rather to have given her this
money to make her circumstances easy, than to have
laid it out in making her wedding splendid.

He behaved himself well during the ceremony ; but
her mother and sisters were under so much undisguised
and unaffected concern the whole time, that the pro-
cession to the chapel, and the scene there, looked more
like the mournfiil pomp of a sacrifice than the joyful
celebration of a marriage; and put one rather in
mind of an Iphigenia leading to the altar than of a
bride.

The Prince of Orange was a less shocking and less
ridiculous figure in this pompous procession and at supper
than one could naturally have expected such an ^^op,
in such trappings and such eminence, to have ap-
peared. He had a long peruke like hair that flowed all
over his back, and hid the roundness of it ; and as his
countenance was not bad, there was nothing very strik-
ingly disagreeable about his stature.

But when he was undressed, and came in his night-
gown and nightcap into the room to go to bed,* the

the procession, extracted from the * London Gazette/ 16th March, 1734,
with a reference to which the reader will, I hope, be satisfied.

* The grossness of this sort of exhibition used to be carried even further.
The Duke de St. Simon, who in 1722 accompanied Mdlle. d'Orldans to
Spain to be married to the Prince of the Asturias, takes great praise to
himself for having over persuaded *^ the modesty and gravity" of Spanish
etiquette to submit on that occasion to the French custom of having the
whole Court introduced to see the young couple actually in bed : and we

1734. PRINCE OP ORANGE. 311

appearance he made was as indescribable as the asto-
nished countenances of everybody who beheld him.
From the shape of his brocaded gown, and the make of
his back, he looked behind as if he had no head, and
before as if he had no neck and no legs. The Queen,
in speaking of the whole ceremony next morning alone
with Lord Hervey, when she came to mention this part
of it, said, "-4A/ mon Dieul quand je voiois entrer ce
monstrej pour coucher avec ma Jilkj fai pensi rrCSva-
nouir ; je chancehis auparavant^ mats ce coup la nCa
assomm^e. Dites mo% my Lord Hervey^ avez voua bien
remarque et consider d ce monstre dans ce m^nent f et
n'aviez vous pas bien pitU de la pauvre Anns? Bon
JDieul c'est trop sotte en moi, mais fen pleure encore"
Lord Hervey turned the discourse as fast as he was
able, for this was a circumstance he could not soften
and would not exaggerate. He only said, " Oh ! Ma-
dam, in half a year all persons are alike ; the figure of
the body one's married to, like the prospect of the
place one lives at, grows so familiar to one's eyes, that
one looks at it mechanically, without regarding either the
beauties or deformities that strike a stranger." " One
may, and I believe one does (replied the Queen), grow
blind at last; but you must allow, my dear Lord
Hervey, there is a great diflFerence, as long as one sees,
in the manner of one s growing blind."

The sisters spoke much in the same style as the
mother, with horror of his figure, and great commisera-
tion of the fate of his wife. Princess Emily said (how
truly is doubtful), nothing upon earth should have in-

shall see by and bye, on the occasion of Prince Frederic's marriage, that it
was also a custom of the English Court.

312 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

duced her to many the monster. Princess Caroline,
in her sofl sensible way, spoke truth, and said she must
own it was very bad ; but that, in her sister's situation,
all things considered, she believed she should have
come to the same resolution.

What seems most extraordinary was, that, from the
time of their being married till they went out of Eng-
land, Lord Hervey (who was perpetually with them,
and at whose lodgings they passed whole evenings)
said that she always behaved to him as if he had been
an Adonis, and that he hardly ever took any notice at
all of her. She made prodigious court to him,*® ad-
dressed everything she said to him, and applauded
everything he said to anybody else.

The Prince of Wales forced himself to be tolerably
civil to the Prince of Orange during his stay here ; but
with the Queen and the Princess Royal he kept so
little measure, that the one he never saw but in public,
and the other he hardly ever spoke to either in public
or private.

One of his wise quarrels with the Princess Royal was
her daring to be married before him^ and consenting to
take a portion from the Parliament, and an establish-
ment from her father, before those honours and favours
were conferred upon him. As if her being married pre-
vented his being so, or that the daughter should decline
being settled because her father declined the settling
of her brother.*^

10 Nor did Lord Hervey himself omit to make his court. He solicited
the Prince to stand sponsor with the Princesses Emily and Caroline to a
new-bom daughter, who in consequence was christened EmUy-CkaroHne"
Nassau. She died unmarried in 1814, set. 80.

11 Lord Hervey does not mention an interview which the Prince had
with the King about this time, which made some noise, and rather, it

1734. PRINCE OP WALES. 313

Another judicious subject of his enmity was her
supporting Handel, a German musician and composer
(who had been her singing master, and was now under-
taker of one of the operas), against several of the
nobility who had a pique with Handel, and had set up
another person to ruin him ; or, to speak more properly
and exactly, the Prince, in the beginning of his enmity
to his sister, set himself at the head of the other opera
to irritate her, whose pride and passions were as strong
as her brother's (although his understanding was so
much weaker), and could brook contradiction, where
she dared to resent it, as little as her father.

seems, widened the breach. About the beginning of Julj, M. de Loss,
the Saxon minister, wrote to his Court—

** Ten or twelve days ago the Prince of Wales went to the ante-chamber
and requested an audience, which he obtained as soon as Sir Robert Walpole,
whom the King had sent for, was gone out of the closet. This audience is
much talked of, and turned, as it is said, on the following points : —

<< 1, To have permission of serving a campaign on the Rhine ; 2. To
request an augmentation of his income, the Prince insinuating that he was
in debt. (N.B. Of 100,000/. granted to the Prince by Parliament out of
the Civil List, only 36,000/. is paid to him, the renuunder is appropriated
by the King.) 3. He represented the necessity of a proper marriage.

" To the first the King made no reply. In regard to the second, the
King is said to have given some hopes, on condition that he would behave
better to the Queen. It is reported the King was displeased with this step.
Many persons suspect that the Opposition advised the Prince to act in this
manner. Relata refero"

And <m the l6th July M. Johnn, the Danish envoy, writes —

" The Queen strives to prevent the ill consequences likely to result from
the late conversation between the King and Prince of Wales. Hopes are
entertained of satisfying the Prince by a sum of money for the payment of
his debts ; but as the article of his marriage is that which most interests
him, and as it is precisely that which will not be granted, it will be ex-
tremely difficult to prevent the business from being laid before the ensuing
Parliament. Those who advised the Prince to take this step probably cal-
culated that an irreconcileable quarrel would have been the consequence ;
but Sir Robert Walpole, whom the King consulted before he admitted the
Prince, disposed his Majesty to moderation on so delicate an occasion."—
Ckfxe's WcJpoU, iii. 169.

314 LORD HEBVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV,

What I have related may seem a trifle ; but though
the cause was indeed such, the effects of it were no
trifles. The King and Queen were as much in earnest
upon this subject as their son and daughter, though
they had the prudence to disguise it, or to endeavour
to disguise it, a little more. They were both Handel-
ists, and sat freezing constantly at his empty Hay-
market Opera, whilst the Prince with all the chief of
the nobility went as constantly to that of Lincoln's Inn
Fields. The affair grew as serious as that of the
Greens and the Blues under Justinian at Constanti-
nople ; an anti-Handelist was looked upon as an anti-
courtier ; and voting against the Court in Parliament
was hardly a less remissible or more venial sin than
speaking against Handel or going to the Lincoln's Inn
Fields Opera. The Princess Royal said she expected
in a little while to see half the House of Lords playing
in the orchestra in their robes and coronets ; and the
King — ^though he declared he took no other part in this
affair than subscribing 1000?. a-year to Handel — often
added at the same time that ^^ he did not think setting
oneself at the head q^sl faction of fiddlers a very ho-
nourable occupation for people of quality ; or the ruin of
one poor fellow [Handel] so generous or so good-natured
a scheme as to do much honour to the undertakers, whe-
ther they succeeded or not ; but the better they succeeded
in it, the more he thought they would have reason to
be ashamed of it'* The Princess Royal quarrelled
with the Lord Chamberlain for affecting his usual neu-
trality on this occasion, and spoke of Lord Delaware,
who was one of the chief managers against Handel,
with as much spleen as if he had been at the head of

1734. LORD CHESTERFIELD. 315

the Dutch faction who opposed the making her husband
Stadtholder.*^

Another cause of the Prince of Wales's wrath to his
mother and his sisters was the having Lord Hervey
perpetually with them ; and a gold snuff-box the Queen
bespoke, with Arts and Sciences engraved upon it, and
gave to Lord Hervey, the Prince said was less in
favour to Lord Hervey, than to insult and outrage
him.

But to return to the chapter of the marriage. The
two Houses on this occasion addressed the King, and
sent messages of congratulation to the Queen. Lord
Scarborough, in the House of Lords, moved the mes-
sage to the Queen, and Lord Chesterfield, officiously
thrusting^^ himself in to second him, was appointed
by the House with Lord Scarborough and Lord Hard-
wicke to carry it.

Lord Chesterfield being the eldest Peer, it was his
right to deliver the message and speak to the Queen :
as he had never been at Court since the day after he
was turned out, nor had ever been presented upon his
marriage, the Queen determined to receive him as an
Earl sent by the House of Lords whom she had never
seen before in her life. He said he designed this step
as a compliment to the Queen, and to show that he had
no rancour except to Sir Robert Walpole ; but she, who
knew how he talked of her, and hated him as heartily

IS The great question depending in Holland, whether the Prince of
Orange should be declared Stadtholder. See Chesteifidd Correspondence^
iii. 40.

13 Lord Chesterfield's recent employment at the Hagae, and his oonoem
in the preliminaries of this marriage, justified his interference — though no
doabt it had a tinge of apposUkn in it

H

316 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

as he did her, spoke of his conduct in presuming to
force himself into this embassy as the greatest imperti-
nence that he could be guilty oi^ and said that, as his
capacity was capable of nothing but making jokes, so
he had a mind to turn a compliment paid to her by the
House of Lords into one ; or that he imagined perhaps
his august, considerable figure would awe and dis-
concert her; but that he would find it was as little
in his power for his presence to embarrass her, as for
his raillery behind her back to pique her, or his con-
summate skill in politics to distress the King or his
ministers*

The Queen was to receive this message in her bed-
chamber, with nobody present but the three messengers,
her children, and the servants in waiting ; but Lord
Hervey, thinking the interview would be something
curious, asked her leave (which she granted) to stand
behind her.

Lord Chesterfield's speech was well written and well
got by heart, and yet delivered with a faltering voice,
a face as white as a sheet, and every limb trembling
with concern.

The Queen's answer was great and natural, and de-
livered with the same ease that she would have spoken
to the most indifierent person in her circle.

She always disliked Lord Chesterfield, owned it,
and used to say that it was because he had always
disliked her. " Dicax enirriy illam acerbis fdcetiis irn-
dere solitus^ quarum apvd proepotentes in longum me-
moria est ;" — " He had a ready wit, and was in the
habit of ridiculing her with bitter jests, which stick
long and deep in the memory of the great" — (7a-

1734. ADDHESSES. 317

cittis.) This remark was verified between the Queen
and Lord Chesterfield, by whom she had been often
this way provoked, and never forgot it nor foi^ave
it. She has often told me that she knew at Lei-
cester Fields,** he used formerly to turn her into
ridicule ; but that she had then frequently between jest
and earnest advised him not to provoke her ; telling
him at the same time that, though she acknowledged
he had more wit than her, yet she would assure him
she had a most bitter tongue, and would certainly pay
him any debts of that kind with most exorbitant in-
terest. She said he always used to deny the fact, and
do it again the moment he got out of the room, or if
she turned her head, without staying till he had turned
his back. For a man of parts, the choosing to make
his court to the King rather than to the Queen, and to
Lord Townshend rather than Sir Robert Walpole, was
a most unaccountable conduct, unless he thought the
people that were easiest deceived were the likeliest for
him to please, and that nobody was capable of being
made his friend but in the same degree that they were
capable of being made his dupes.

The City of London, the University of Oxford, and
several other disafiected towns and incorporated bodies,
took the opportunity of the Princess Royal's marriage
to say the most impertinent things to the King, under
the pretence of complimental addresses, that ironical
zeal and couched satire could put together. The tenor
of them all was to express their satisfaction in this
match, fipom remembering how much this country was

14 Lord Chesterfield was of the Court of Greorge II. when Prince of
Wales.

318 LORD HERVBT'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

indebted to a Prince who bore the title of Orange;
declaring their gratitude to his memory, and inti-
mating, as plainly as they dared, how much they
wished this man might follow the example of his
great ancestor, and one time or other depose his father^
inrlaw in the same manner that King William had
deposed his.

The address of the City of London was Ihus epito-
mised in verse : —

" Most graciotis Sire, behold before you
Your prostrate subjects that adore you —
The Mayor and Citizens of London,
By loss of trade and taxes undone,
Who come with gratulation hearty,
Altho' they 're of the Country Party,
To wish your Majesty much cheer
On Anna's maniage with Myn'heer.
Our hearts presage, from this alliance,
The fairest hopes, the brightest triumphs ;
For if one Revolution glorious
Has made us wealthy and victorious,
Another, by just consequence,
Must double both our power and pence :
We therefore hope that young Nassau,
Whom you have chose your son-in-law,
Will show himself of William's stock,
And prove a chip of the same block."

By a blunder of the Duke of Grafton^s — who always

blundered nor ever knew what he was about, and had

\ lived in a Court all his life without knowing even the

"^ \ common forms of it — when the City of London brought

I their address, none of those who presented it had the

\ honour to kiss the King's hand. This was immediately

told .all over the kingdom; not as the effect of my

Lord Chamberlain s negligence and ignorance, which

indeed it was, but as a mark of the King's resentment

of the purport of the City of London's address : and

1784. UNPOPULAKITY OF THE COURT. 319

everybody who believed the thing in this manner
condemned the King for giving those who meant to be
impertinent fo him the pleasure of seeing he under-
stood them.

It is certain at this time the Court was very unpo-
pular, that the King and Queen were as much person-
ally hated as Sir Robert Walpole, and both spoken and
wrote against with as much freedom: but they were
not so sensible as he was of the situation they were in ;
particularly the King, who imagined those courtiers
and flatterers that were perpetually incensing his altars
in the palace, spoke the sentiments of all his subjects,
though in reality they were as far from speaking the
opinion of the nation as their own, and were no more
the echoes of other people's words than they were the
communicators of their own thoughts.

What I am going to say may sound paradoxical ; but
it is my firm opinion, though I know not how to ac^
count for it, that, although money and troops are gene-
rally esteemed the nerves and sinews of all the regal
power, and that no king ever had so large a civil
list or so large an army in time of peace as the pre-
sent King, yet that the Crown was never less capable
of infringing the liberties of this country than at this
time ; and that the spirit of liberty was so universally
breathed into the breasts of the people, that, if any vio-
lent act of power had been attempted, at no era
would it have been more difficult to perpetrate any un-
dertaking of that kind. The King was often told, both
in Parliament and in print, that his crown had been
the gift of the people; that it was given on conditions;

320 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

and that it behoved him to observe those conditions,
as it would be both as easy and as lawful, in case he
broke any of them, for the people to resume that gift,
as it had been for them to bestow it

The Prince, who always im^^ined himself the idol
of the people, was to the full as unpopular as his pa-
rents. And though on this occasion of the Prince of
Orange's wedding, he might plainly have seen that he
was quite dropped, and that those who wished to get
rid of his father never desired to exchange his father
for him, yet nothing could open his eyes, the bandage
of vanity bound them so close, and so determined he
was to believe that every discontent centered in the
King, the Queen, and Sir Kobert Walpole, and that
all the nation wished as much as he himself, that the
time was come for him to ascend the throne.

Some mortification, however, he could not help feel-
ing, and showing in his countenance, when, upon going
to the play once or twice with the Prince of Orange,
the galleries when he came into the box only made a
little clapping as usual with their hands, and the mo-
ment the Prince of Orange appeared the whole house
rung with peals of shouts and huzzas.

The King himself began before the Prince of
Orange went away to be very uneasy at distinctions of
this kind that were paid him, and could not contentedly
see, every opera-night from his own window, the coach
of the Prince of Orange surrounded by crowds and
ushered out of Court with incessant hallooing, whilst
his own chair followed the moment after through empty
and silent streets.

1734. PRINCE OF ORANGE. 321

Nor were the States of Holland less jealous of the
Prince of Orange's popularity in that country than the
King was concerned at it in this ; but the jealousy of
the one, and the concern of the other, were not equally
well founded; there being but little danger of the
Prince of Orange's subverting the Government here
and making himself King, whereas the inferior people
in Holland were so strenuous in his cause, and the
spirits of his party so raised by his new alliance, that
his being one day or other Stadtholder there was an
event whose probability made apprehension much more
justifiable.

This being his present position both in England and
Holland, the King grew in haste to be rid of him,
whilst those who had the power there were unwilling
to receive him : so unwilling they were and so afraid
of his presence causing an immediate insurrection of
the populace in his favour, that it was privately inti-
mated to him here from the chief people of that
country, who then presided in the government of it,
that they hoped he would not think of passing through
Holland to Friesland," but go directly thither by sea.

Horace Walpole, who the year before was sent into
Holland to treat of the affairs of Europe, under the
pretence of going to fetch the Prince of Orange, now
made die affairs of Europe a pretence for going to
settle those of the Prince ; but all he could obtain for

ift Of which provinoe, as is stated Id the next page, he was hereditary
Stadtholder. The authorities of the proyince of Holland, and especially of
Amsterdam, were opposed to the election of the Prince of Orange, while
the people were all for him ; and his very passage through the province
became a source of danger to the existing Grovemment See tade^
p. 278, n. 2, where the reference should have been to ihii page.

VOL, !• Y

322 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XTV.

the Prince was a permission to land with his bride at
Rotterdam, and pass to Amsterdam with the utmost
expedition and privacy, in order to re^embark there for
Friesland. One thing more he obtained for the Princess
Royal, which was, that, when she came to the Hague
in her return to England, she was to have the offer of a
guard on condition she would refuse it; and a fiirther
stipulation there was for the making the oflfer, which
was, that the Prince of Orange should not be in the
way when she received the military ambassador who
brought it, because, in that case, this messenger would
be obliged to distinguish between the husband and the
wife, and assure the first he was not designed to have
a^y share in this compliment paid to the last.

The Prince of Orange was hereditary Stadtholder
of Friesland, and Stadtholder by election of Grdningen
and Guelderland.

Though the principal reason of Horace Walpole's
expedition to Holland was the regulation of the Prince
of Orange's reception there, yet he took occasion at
the same time to feel anew the pulse of the Pensionary
[Slingelandtj and great people there with regard to
the present situation of Europe, and was extremely
mortified to find them beat so calmly that there was no
hope of raising that fever of war with which he wished
so much to infect them. Besides the making his court
to the King and Queen by endeavouring to bring the
Dutch to more vigorous measures, he had a personal
interest in it ; for, as he felt himself ignorant of do-
mestic affairs, and fancied himself perfectly master of
foreign negotiations ; as he declared he made no figure
in Parliament, or rather a ridiculous one ; and that he

1734 HORACE WALPOLB. 323

flattered himself he shone brighter than any man in
embassies and despatches, so he wished to tnm the
scene of business entirely on that side, and desired to
do by England as he did by himself which was to have
it engaged to its discredit rather than lie idle — though
in France it must be owned, by the interest he had in
the Cardinal, he did England service; but how he got
that interest in the Cardinal was very extraordinary.
The two things in Mr. Walpole which hiB Eminence
told Monsieur Chavigny^^ gained most upon him were
his blunt behaviour and his manner of living with his
wife: the one he said gave him a good opinion of
Mr. Walpole*s sincerity, and the other of his morality;
so that Horace had the good fortune to succeed abroad
by the very two qualities which drew the most con-
tempt and ridicule upon him at home, which were the
coarseness of his manners and the depravity of his
taste. For the wife to whom he showed all this good-
ness was a tailor's daughter, whom he had married for
interest, with a form scarce human, as offensive to the
nose and the ears as to the eyes, and one to whom he
was kind, not from any principle of gratitude, but from
the bestiality of his inclination.^^

Horace Walpole, with all his defects, was certainly a
very good treaty-dictionary, to which his brother often

ift At this time French Minister in London.

17 She was, says the Peerage, the daughter of " Peter Lombard, Esq.,"
whom the old Duchess of Marlborough used to deUgfat ta call *' my toSw^
I know not what her person may have been, but Horace the younger, who
hated her, admitted that she on one oooasioii at least exhibited a temper and
good taste <' almost sublime." When presented at the Court of France,
the Queen asked her *< De quelle fiuuille dtea-voos, Madame ? " Mrs.
Walpole answered modestly, '* i>'aiiciiiM." The paiagraph in the text
does, I think, more discredit to Lord Kerrey's taste than to Mr. Walpde'a.

Y 2

\

I

324 LOBD HEBYET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

referred for facts necessary for him to be informed o^
and of which he was capable of making good use; but
to hear Horace himself talk on these subjects unre-
strained, and without being turned to any particular
pointy was listening to a rhapsody that was never co-
herenty and often totally unintelligible." This made
his long and frequent speeches in Parliament uneasy to
his own party, ridiculous to the other, and tiresome to
both. He loved business, had great application, and
was indefatigable; but, from having a most unclear
head, no genius, no method, and a most loose incon-
clusive manner of reasoning, he was absolutely useless
to his brother in every capacity but that which I have
already mentioned of a dictionary. He was a very
disagreeable man in company, noisy, overbearing,
affecting to be always jocose, and thoroughly the mau-
vais plaisant ; as unbred in his dialect as in his apparel,
and as ill bred in his discourse as in his behaviour and
gestures ; with no more of the look than the habits of a
gentleman. A free, easy, cheerfril manner of convers-
ing made some people mistake him enough to think
him good-natured; but he was far from it, and did
many ill offices to people, and never that I heard of
any good ones. Nor did he, with all the credit he was
known to have with his brother, ever make one friend.
Sir Robert was really humane, did friendly things, and
one might say of him, as Pliny said of Trajan, and as
nobody could say of his brother or his master, ^^ amicos

1® I think Lord Heirey was somehow personally biassed against Mr.
Walpole, whose letters and despatches gire a very much better impression
of his abilities and judgment. I must, however, admit that his Lordship's
estimate is nearly identical with that of Mr. Walpole's nephew and name-
sake.

1734. HORACE WALPOLE. 325

habuiij quia amicus fuiti^ — " He had friends, because
he was a friend." Horace was envious, revengeftil, in-
veterate, and implacable ; but, from being afraid of his
enemies, he had a behaviour towards them which many
of them called good-humour, mistaking his timidity for
serenity, and thinking, because he did not dare to
strike, that he did not wish to wound."

Whilst Horace was in Holland the Parliament was
dissolved; the job of the vote of confidence being over,
and a bill to enable the King to settle 5000^. a-year
out of the civil-list revenues on the Princess Boyal
for her life being passed, the Court had no further oc-
casion for the Parliament sitting, and everybody grew
impatient to put an end to their expense and trouble by
hastening to the new elections and getting them over.

After all the solicitude the Opposition had shown
to pay compliments to the Prince of Orange by taking
the lead in proposing a bill for his naturalization, they
were weak and imprudent enough in the House of
Commons to oppose this bill for the Princess Royal, and
to divide upon it. The Prince [of Wales] disliked it in
his heart ; but when some of those who opposed it in the
House said they were against it because it looked like
a distrust of her brother, Dodington, as first Minister
to the Prince, got up and told the House he had au-
thority from the Prince to give his Boyal Highnesses
assent to this bill, and declare his approbation of it.

The King's Speech at the end of this session of Par-

19 " Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike."
It is curious to find this allusion, which could hardly have been acci-
dental, to the same satire of Pope's in which Lord Hervey himself figures
as Spams, The satire appeared in 1734, and Lord Heryey must have written
this portion of the Memoirs very shortly after.

/

326 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chaf. XIV.

liament was on Tuesday the 16th day of April, 1734 ;*•
and the day after the Speech two Proclamations came
out, the one for the dissolution of this Parliament, and
the other for calling a new one.

Upon the rising of the Parliament, Mr. Onslow, the
Speaker of the House of Commons^** was made Trea-
surer of the Navy, in the room of Lord Torrington.**
Lord Torrington was not disgraced, but was put into
the Vice-Treasurership of Ireland, in the place of Lord
Falmouth, who had talked and voted himself out of a
better employment than he ever deserved, or would
ever be able to talk or vote himself into again. His
agreeable and respectable situation at present was
being despised as insignificant by those he aban-
doned, and laughed at for a fool by those to whom he
deserted.

Lord Stair, at the same time, had his regiment taken
firom him, the King saying he would never let a man
keep anything by favour who had endeavoured to keep
it by force — ^alluding to Lord Stair's having voted for
the bill to make the officers' commissions for life. Lord
Stair, as soon as he was broke, wrote a letter to the
Queen, and gave it to her Lord Chamberlain '^ to deliver
( I to her. Lord Grantham, who was for ever in doubt
. what he should do, and always at last determined to

^ Lord Hervey had agaia extracted the speech from the Gazette, where,
as well as in all the books of reference, the curious reader may find it.

SI Until the Speakership of Mr. Addington in 1789, when first there was
a fixed salary voted for that office, it was very objectionably paid by fees,
and by some lucrative office under the Crown.

M Pattee, second Lord Tornngton.

ss Henry de Nassau d'Auverquerque, second Earl of Grantham, Lord
Chamberlain to the Queen. He was the son of one of King William's
generals, (a branch of the Nassau family,) so created in 1698.

1734. DEPARTURE OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL. 327

do what he should not, charged himself with this letter,
and, without saying from whom he had it, carried it to
the Queen. The Queen, opening it and looking im-
mediately at the name, fell upon Lord Grantham for
drawing her into this unpleasant scrape, and, without
reading the letter, bid Lord Grantham carry it imme-
diately to Sir Robert Walpole, and desired him to
show it the King ; by which means she very dexter-
ously avoided the danger of concealing such a letter
irom the King, or giving Sir Robert Walpole any
cause of jealousy from showing it The letter set forth
the deplorable state of this country, both from the
power of France abroad and from Sir Robert Walpole
at home ; and all the effect it had on the King was
making him call Lord Stair a puppy for writing it, and
Lord Grantham a fool for bringing it

In a few days after the Parliament was up \22nd
April], the Princess Royal and Prince of Orange em-
barked at Greenwich for Holland : never was there a
more melancholy parting than between her Royal High-
ness and all her family, except her brother — who took
no leave of her at all, and desired the Prince of Orange
to let her know his reason for omitting it was the fear of
touching her too much. Her father gave her a thousand
kisses and a shower of tears, but not one guinea.

Her mother never ceased crying for three days ; but
after three weeks (excepting on post-days) her Royal
Highness seemed as much forgotten as if she had been
buried three years. So quick a smoother is absence of
the deepest impressions royal minds are capable of
receiving. Impressions that are only to be preserved

328 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

by an effort of memory and reflection are indeed, in
all human compositions, like characters written in sand,
that, if they are not perpetually retained by our senses,
they are seldom of any great duration, and are easily
effaced, though ever so strongly marked.

Whilst the Princess lay wind-bound at Gravesend
Lord Hervey went, by her desire, to make her a visit :
and here it was, by being closeted two or three hours
with the Prince of Orange, Lord Hervey found his
bride had already made him so well acquainted with
this Court, that there was nobody belonging to it whose
character, even to the most minute particulars, was not
as well known to him as their face. The Prince of
Orange had a good deal of drollery, and, whilst
Lord Hervey was delivering the compliments of
St. James's to him, he asked him, smiling, what mes-
S€^e he had brought from the Prince ? Lord Hervey
said his departure was so sudden that he had not seen
the Prince. "If you had " (replied the Prince of Orange),
" it would have been all one, since he was not more
likely to send his sister a message than he was to make
your Lordship his ambassador." Lord Hervey was a
good deal surprised to hear the Prince of Orange speak
so freely on this subject, and did not think it very dis-
creet in him ; but he was still more surprised when his
Highness proceeded to open himself so much on the
Prince of Wales's character as made it not hard to dis-
cover that his affection to the Prince's person, his
opinion of his understanding, his dependence on his
truth, and his esteem for his integrity, were all much
at the same pitch. He told Lord Hervey what the

1734. VISIT TO THE PRINCE OP ORANGE. 329

Prince had said about taking leave of his sister, at
which they both smiled. He then acquainted Lord
Hervey how often the Prince had entertained him with
the recital of his Lordship's ingratitude — a subject on
which Lord Hervey begged his Highness to spare him,
since it must be extremely disagreeable to anybody to
listen to one's own accusation when they were deter-
mined never to enter into their defence. The Prince
of Orange, however, went on, and talked of Miss
Vane,** and bade Lord Hervey not be too proud of
that boy, since he had heard from very good authority
it was the child of a triumvirate, and that the Prince
and Lord Harrington had full as good a title to it as
himself. Lord Hervey told the Prince of Orange that
his speaking to him in this strain was not only the
most effectual, but the most disagreeable method he
could take to impose silence upon him, and begged
they might either change the topic of their conversation
or go to the company below stairs. The Prince of

^ This unfortunate lady was, Horace Walpole tells us, the cause of the
quarrel between the Prince and Lord Hervey. — Reminiscences. ^< Miss
Vane, one of the maids of honour to the Queen, was sister of the first Lord
Darlington, and mistress of Frederick Prince of Wales, by whom she had
a son, publicly christened, in 1732, Fitz^ Frederick Vane. She lay-in
with little mystery in St. James's Palace, and yet it was doubted whether
the Prince was really the parent. Lord Hervey was suspected of
being a still more favoured lover; and Horace Walpole says that the
Prince, Lord Hervey, and the first Lord Harrington, each confided to Sir
Robert Walpole that he was the father of the child. It died in 1786, and
its unhappy mother in a few months afler." — Suffolk Cor.^ i. 407. The
coolness between the Prince and Lord Hervey seems to have begun to-
wards the close of 1731, and its progress may be traced in a few expressions
of his private letters, but he carefully omits all reference to the cause of
quarrel. We shall see, however, by and by, that Miss Vane had probably
a great share in it

830 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

Orange, seeing him really uneasy and embarrassed,
began to talk of the affairs of Europe, and showed he
was as well informed of the interests of all foreign
Courts as he was of the anecdotes of this.

When Lord Hervey took his leave of the Princess
Boyal, she bid him be sure to do his utmost to prevent
a peace being made, and to make her mamma warm.
The reason was, because, the war continuing, the Prince
of Orange was to go a tour this campaign to the Impe-
rial Army, and she in that case would return during
his absence to England. Besides this, if the war con-
tinued, she thought Holland would be brought into it ;
and if Holland was brought into it, a Stadtholder would
be more likely to be made. So that her pleasure in
present, and her ambition in future, were both con-
cerned in her solicitude for no end to be put to the
murder, rapine, distress, and calamity that at present
raged in Europe. And when one reflects on the in-
fluence the counsels of England had at this time on the
fate of Europe — the influence the Queen had on those
counsels, and the influence her daughter then had upon
her — when, by this chain of causes, one considers what
might turn the scale, and decide upon the lives and
deaths of thousands, the destruction or preservation
of many cities, the tranquillity or distress of whole
nations, and the prosperity or adversity of half Europe
— what respect it must give one for the hands of the
few who regulate these great events; and with what
confidence, resignation, content, and security must sub^
jects commit the welfare of kingdoms to the justice and
judgment of those mortal deities, their Princes, when

1734. THE ELECnONS. 331

they see and know them actuated by such motives, and
determined by such reasons ! ^

The day the Princess set sail from Gravesend the
King and Queen retired to Bichmond, where they
waited the account of every election under as much
anxiety as if their Crown had been at stake. The
complexion of the new Parliament was, indeed, of great
moment to them ; for never was an opposing party
more exasperated against a Court, or a stiffer struggle
made to distress it.

Notwithstanding the severe Act passed in the year
1729 to prevent bribery and corruption in elections^ yet
money, though it had been formerly more openly given,
was never more plentifully issued than in these. Every
election that went against the Court the King imputed
to the fault of those who lost it, and much too fre-
quently, and too publicly, accused the Whigs of negli-
gence; saying, at the same time, that if the Tories had
had a quarter of the support from the Government
that the Whigs had received from it for twenty years
together, they would never have suflTered the Crown to
be pushed and the Court to be distressed in the manner
it now was : and generally added to these declarations,
that he could not help saying, for the honour of the
Tories, that they were always much firmer united, and

9^ I wonder that Lord Hervey oould attach so much importance to guch a
phrase as this, addressed to a Vice- Chamberlain hj a young princess, not
even a sovereign, going abroad for the first time, and anxious to revisit
her mamma and sisters. There is abundant proof in these Memoirs that
the Princess Royal had no such influence over the King, or even the
Queen, as Lord Hervey suggests. On fitter occasions his deprecation of
war is forcible and just

332 LORD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

much more industrious and circumspect, than the
Whigs.

That the King often dropped things of this kind was
no secret to either party, and as it piqued the one it
animated the other; hurting the cause of those he
espoused, and promoting the interest of those he wished
to depress.

Sir Robert Walpole was now in Norfolk, pushing the
county election there, which the [Ministerial] Whigs
lost by six or seven voices, to the great triumph of
the Opposition. After the election was over he stayed
some time at Houghton, solacing himself with his
mistress, Miss Skerrett, whilst his enemies were working
against him at Richmond, and persuading the King
and Queen that the majority of the new Parliament
would infallibly be chosen against the Court.

Lord Hervey, who was every day and all day at
Richmond, saw this working, and found their Majesties
staggering ; upon which he wrote an anonymous letter
to Sir Robert Walpole with only these few words in it,
quoted out of a play: —

" WkiUt in Iter artns at Capua he lay.
The world feU mouldering from his hand each hour,*'

Sir Robert knew the hand, understood the meaning;
and, upon the receipt of this letter, came immediately
to Richmond. Lord Hervey, upon his return, told him
what he had heard; but that, the King and Queen both
talking in the same strain with regard to the neglect
and remissness of the Whigs, and the firmness and in-
dustry of the Tories, he could not tell from which of
them these notions had been communicated to the other,

1784. SIR ROBERT WALPOLB. 833

or who had iniused them originally in either. He
said, if they came from the King, he guessed my Lord
President for their source ; if from the Queen, that the
Bishops Hare and Sherlock^ had propagated them ; and
he was more inclined to think they came this way for
two reasons : in the first place, because the King was
more likely to receive impressions from the Queen than
to make them ; and in the next, because he knew what
Sherlock said had more weight with her than anything
that came from any mouth but Sir Robert's had with
the King. Sir Robert said he did not believe it was
Sherlock. Lord Hervey told him both Hare and
Sherlock had been with her ; that Sherlock was a great
favourite ; hated the Bishop of London, and knew Sir
Robert's partiality to him ; had himself an eye to Lam-
beth, and was sensible he had no chance to go there in
case of a vacancy if Sir Robert's power could send the
other. Sir Robert Walpole, however, persisted in say-
ing he did not think these arrows came out of Sher-
lock's quiver, and that he could guess the hand that
threw them ; however, he did not tell whom he sus-
pected, and I believe was in doubt, though he pre-
tended he was not. But he told Lord Hervey that
this was ever his fate, and that he never could turn his
back for three days that somebody or other did not
give it a slap of this kind. And how, indeed, could it
ever be otherwise, for, as he was unwilling to employ
anybody under him, or let anybody approach the King
and Queen who had any understanding, lest they should

M Frandfl Hare, Bishop of Chichester, and Thomas Sherlock, then
Bishop of Bangor, but shortly afterwards translated to Salisbury, and
subsequently to London.

834 LORD HERTETS MEMOIRS. Chap. IIV.

employ it against him, so, from fear of having dan*
gerous friends, he never had any useful ones, every one
of his subalterns being as incapable of defending him as
they were of attacking him, and no better able to sup-
port than to undermine him ?

Many who lost their elections, and particularly the
Duke of Dorset, whose eldest son was thrown out in
Kent, imputed every miscarriage of the Court candi-
dates to the Excise scheme ; but as soon as Sir Robert
came back he set everything right, resumed his power,
and effaced every impression that had been made either
in the mind of the King or Queen to his disadvantage,
or in distrust of the new Parliament. The Ministers'
list in the election of the Scotch Peers, notwithstand*
ing the eflbrts made to subvert the Court interest, was
carried by the industry and dexterity of Lord Isla
by a very great majority ; the minority protested against
the illegality of the election. The substance of the
protest was, that the Minister had sent an agent down
with money to corrupt the electors ; that the sixteen
who were returned were chosen entirely by that undue
influence, and consequently had no right to sit^''

Lord Isla was the man on whom Sir Robert Wal-
pole depended entirely for the management of all
jScotch afikirs : a man of parts, quickness, knowledge,
temper, dexterity, and judgment — a man of little
truth, little honour, little principle, and no attachment

s7 Lord Marchmont was one of the r^ected ; and a curious passage in a
letter iVomLord Chesterfield to him on the occasion— suggesting the bribing
'* two or three of the lowest of those yenal peers " to confess that th^ had
received bribe$ from the other side — shows that the Opposition was not
more scrupulous than the Ministry they ctnmjoed.^ Chesterfield (Jor.^ iii.
p. 94.

1734. LORD ISLA. 835

bufc to his interest — a pedantic, dirty, shrewd, unbred
fellow of a college, with a mean aspect, bred to the
sophistry of the civil law, and made a peer, would have
been just such a man. His great maxim on which he re-
gulated his whole political conduct with r^ard to persons
was, ^^ so to love that he might hate, and so to hate
that he might love :" that is, never so far to confide as
not to dare to break, nor ever so fiir to outrage as to
make it impossible to be reconciled. With all his Par«
liamentary skill and accomplishments, his ungraceful
manner of speaking, his prolixity, his disagreeable voice
and bad elocution made all he said lose its force; and
what everybody would have owned a good dissertation
if they had read it, was never an affecting speech when
they heard it: it was not animated enough to persuade,
nor attended to enough to convince. Sir Robert Wal-
pole, with all the influence he had upon the Queen's
opinions of things and inclination to persons, could
never make her love Lord Isla; and thoi^h she gene^
rally measured her iavours if not her affection to people
according to the public use they were of to the King's
affairs, yet Lord Isla's services, great as they were,
could never wash out the stains of his former misde«»
meanours. The Queen had habituated herself to hating
him on his having formerly, for a long while together,
made his court to Lady Suffolk; Lady Suffolk now
hated him as much for having neglected her in order
to gain the Queen, which he could never effect So
that his unfortunate situation with both was, being dis-^
liked as much by the one for what he was, as by the
other for what he had been ; the one quite foi^etting
how much she had once been obliged, and the other

ly

LORD HERYKTS MEMOIRS. Chap. XIV.

always remembering how much she had been disobliged.
The Duke of Argyle was in still a worse situation in
her affections than his brother, and for the same reason;^
for, Sir Robert Walpole not loving his Grace, and
wishing to increase the Queen's dislike to him rather
than to remove it, it continued without the least abate-
ment; whilst Sir Robert, by perpetually working in
Lord Isla's favour, had a little softened her resentment
towards him, though he could never quite eradicate it.
Lord Isla's behaviour, and the service he did the King
in those last Scotch elections, set forth in all its lustre,
made the Queen more willing to allow his merit than
she had ever been on any other occasion.

The behaviour of these two brothers to one another
was the most extraordinary correspondence ever heard
of: they had had a private and personal quarrel ten
years ago, and from that time to this had been so
exasperated against each other, that they had not ex-
changed one word ; yet were always in the same interest
and perpetually convened to the same political meet-
ings, and by the means of a Mr. Stewart (who went
between them), a Scotch gentleman, an adroit fellow
and a common friend to them both, they acted as much
in concert as if they had been the most intimate and
most cordial friends.

The Duke of Argyle was of great consequence in
Scotland, and the interest of the Campbell family kept
these two brothers united. His Grace commanded a
great many followers in the House of Commons, and,
by being often hungry and often fed, was ofl;en in and

^ See anie^ p. 168.

1734. DUKE OP ARGYLE. 337

often out of humour with the Admiaistration. He was
haughty, passionate, and peremptory; gallant, and a
good officer ; with very good parts, and much more
reading and knowledge than generally falls to the share
of a man educated a soldier and born to so great a
title and fortune."

The tumult of the elections being now over, and the
King, Queen, and Ministers pretty well satisfied with
the complexion of the new-born Parliament, the Court
removed for its summer residence to Kensington, and
all the conversation of it was turned from domestic to
foreign aflairs: I shall therefore now give a short
account of the transactions of the campaign.

» See caUe, p. 245. ^

VOL. I.

LOKD EERVBrS MEMOIRS. Chap. XV

CHAPTER XV.

Foreign affiura— War on the Continent-- Campaign in Italy — Pretender in
the Spanish army — Conquest of Sicily — Historical Account of Sicily —
Battles of Parma and Guastalla— War in Germany— Si^^ of Philips-
burg — Siege and surrender of Dantzic — Gallantry of Count Plelo—
Flight of King Stanislaus—Policy of Cardinal Fleury and of Sir Robert
Walpole — Counteracted by Hatolf and the Hanoverian Interest, and by
the Queen — Opinion of the English Ministers— Character of Coimt
Kinski — Peace preserved.

The Emperor sent into Italy near 50,000 men, the
flower of the Imperial troops, under the command of
Count Merci, an old brutal, hot-headed German of
fourscore, who had lost his sight, and had all the in-
firmities of age without the experience, and all the
heat of youth without the vigour of it

To the Khine he sent Prince Eugene with only
22,000 men to oppose 100,000, and to wait there the
arrival of the quotas to be furnished by the princes of
the empire, who were as slow to send them as he was
pressing to demand them. This disposition of afiairs
made Count Staremberg tell his Imperial Majesty at
Vienna that he had sent an army without a general
into Italy, and a general without an army to the Bhine.
A reflection very well applied, which he borrowed from
Suetonius ; for when Caesar was going into Spain to
make war there on the Lieutenants of Pompey, and
intended upon their reduction to return and follow
Pompey into Greece, Suetonius reports Caesar to have

1734. CAMPAIGN IN ITALY. 339

said, " Ire se ad exerdtum sine duce^ et inde rever-
mrum ad dueem sine exercitu ;** — '* That he would first
go to the army without a general, and would thence
return to the general without an army/'

The consequence of this disposition of affairs to the
Emperor was, that Italy was soon lost: 30,000 Spa-
niards, commanded by Count Montemar, marched
through the Ecclesiastical States to Naples, soon sub-
dued it, and set Don Carlos (who went at the head
of them their titular general) on the throne of that
kingdom. The Emperor had 12,000 men (as good
troops as any in the world) then in Naples ; but as
they were commanded by Visconti, then Viceroy of
Naples, an old timid dotard, who knew little of civil,
and nothing of military afiairs, these troops were so
disposed that no defence was made against the Spa-
niards that gave any lustre to the wreaths of their
triumph.

This ignorant, superannuated coward, taken out of
the Cabinet of the Archduchess at Brussels (where
he had nothing to do but raise taxes and keep up Aus-
trian formality), and set at the head of this Govern-
ment in this difficult conjuncture, knew not which way
to turn, or what measures to take ; and, instead of col-
lecting his forces to make any stand against the first
invasion of the Spaniards, he shut up 4000 men in
Gaeta, 4000 more in Capua, and with the other 4000
deserted Naples, and ran he knew not whither up into
the country towards Apulia^ with what effects of his
own he could carry off, leaving his master's affairs to
take care of themselves.

z2

340 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

By these means about 17,000 Spaniards, very bad
troops, who advanced before the rest, and might easily
have been defeated by the Imperialists led on by an
able general, took possession of Naples, and there
crowned Don Carlos without striking a blow; they
then pursued the Viceroy, who narrowly escaped him-
self by the mountains, whilst every man of his miserable
little army was either killed or taken prisoner.

This battle [25th May] was called the Battle of Bi-
tonto ; and the Count Montemar, in consequence of this
and all his other services, was created Duke of Bitonto
by Don Carlos as soon as ever Don Carlos was crowned
King of Naples. Gaeta and Capua were soon after be-
sieged and taken, which left the new King of Naples in
absolute and quiet possession of the whole kingdom,
save only two or three little inconsiderable places, very
improperly called forts, which were soon aft«r reduced.
The son of the Pretender was sent a volunteer to the
siege of Gaeta in great state, and received with great
honoiu^ and distinctions by Don Carlos : his retinue
consisted of a governor, a master of the horse, four
gentlemen of the bedchamber, and inferior domestics in
proportion. Gratitude from princes nobody expects —
at least who knows them; it was therefore (in that
light merely considered) no wonder to see Don Carlos
making those troops which the King of England's fleet
had brought two years before into Italy treat the pre-
tended heir to his crown as if he had been the true
one ; but what the policy of the counsels of Spain could
be in permitting this step is inconceivable.

As soon as Mr. Keene, the English Minister at the

1734. THE YOUNG PRBTENDEE. 341

Court of Spain, heard of this proceeding, he complained
of it to Patinho/ and said, though he had received no
orders yet from England to mention it^ he did not be-
lieve it would be well taken. Patinho immediately, as
first Minister, told Mr. Keene that his Court would ab-
solutely disavow the measure : he declared in the name
of his master that no offence was meant to be given
to the King of England, and that, since Mr. Keene
thought offence would be taken at it^ he would immedi-
ately despatch a courier to Naples (which accordingly
he did) to order the Pretender's son to be sent back.
At the same time, Patinho told Mr. Keene that in a
private character he would own to him exactly the
manner in which this thing had come about The
Duke of Liria, he said, [second] son to the Duke of
Berwick, who was cousin-german to this boy,^ had, when
in Don Carlos's army, asked leave of the Court of
Spain to bring his cousin there a volunteer, and the
Court of Spain, not thinking it an affair of any conse-
quence, had obliged the Duke of Liria in this request ;
but that, for receiving the boy as Prince of Wales, or
paying him any honours as a king's son, he was sure no
such thing had been done.

Nevertheless, it was currently reported and gene-
rally believed to be otherwise, and that the boy had
been received by Don Carlos with all the honours and
distinctions that could be showed to him. Particulars
too were told that confirmed people in this opinion,

^ Don Joseph Patinho, prime minister of Spain.

s Charles Edward, the young Pretender, was bom on the last day of
1720, and was therefore really no more than a boy.

842 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

especially one, which was, that Don Carlos and this
boy coming back together to Naples in a galley from
Gaeta, the hat of the young Pretender fell into the sea,
and, the mariners going to take it up, Don Carlos cried
out^ ^^ It is no matter, it floats towards England, and
the owner will soon go fetch it ; and, that I may have
something to fetch too, mine shall accompany it"
Upon that he threw his own hat into the sea, whilst
the whole retinue of both Princes set up a hu2za, all
threw their hats into the sea, and cried " Al InghiUerra I
al Ingkilterra /"

Montijo, at London, took the same turn that Pa-
tinho did at Madrid ; he absolutely denied that Spain
had countenanced this measure^ and said to the Duke
of Newcastle that orders were sent, as soon as the thing
was known, to have the boy recalled.

However, this excuse in reality was a very insuffi-
cient recompense, the affi*ont having been public and
the reparation private.

The King and Queen too were both extremely hurt
at it ; but Sir Robert Walpole very wisely told them
there was no medium to be held in their conduct, and
they must either seem quite satisfied with the apology
made for the a£Qront, or must thoroughly resent it, and
forbid Montijo the Court He said their Majesties'
situation was such, that, if they had a mind to quarrel
with Spain, this incident no doubt gave them a handle
to do it ; but if they had no mind to it, he thought
the excuse that had been made for the impertinence of
Spain was sufficient to justify their honour in over-
looking it: the latter was the part they took.

After the reduction of the kingdom of Naples the

1734. fflSTORY OP SICILY. 343

resolution was taken by the Spaniards of making an
immediate descent upon Sicily : accordingly an army of
•*,000 foot and 2000 horse, under the command of
the Duke of * * ', with a fleet of 30 sail, was sent to
make that conquest They soon completed it, the three
towns of Messina, Trapani, and Syracuse, which held
out longer than the rest, only excepted.^

And here I cannot help remarking that this un-
happy island seems from the beginning of its existence,
at least from the earliest accounts that history unmixed
with fable affords us of its fortune, to have been marked
out by Heaven as an object of successive calamities.
And even those things which are called blessings to
other countries have proved such curses to this that
they have contributed chiefly to sharpen and promote
the series of its misfortunes. I mean by these com-
monly esteemed blessings the apt situation of Sicily for
trade; the fertility of her fields, than which, says
Justin, *^ nulla terra feracior fuit — there was no more
fruitful soil;" the plenteousness of her harvests, her
vineyards, and her olive-trees; the strength of her
cities, and the opulence of her people — all which have
constantly drawn the eyes of her neighbours upon her,
excited their envy, and made them turn their arms to
so tempting and desirable an acquisition —

^^Popttlus Sotnanusy mox quum vider^ opulentissimam in
proximo pr<Bdam^ qtiodammodb Italiod swb abscissam et quasi

> These blanks are caused by defects in the manuscript, but may from
the contemporaneous gazettes be filled up with <' 18,000 " foot— and Duke
of ** Bitonto "—who was next year created Duke of Montemar.

« Messina fell in February, Syracuse in June, and Trapani soon after.

344 LORD HERVBY'8 MEKOIRS. Chap. XV.

revulsam, adeb cupiditate ejus exarsit ut quatentu nee mole
jungi nee pontibus posset^ armis belhque jungenda et ad conti-
neniem mam revocanda bello videretur.*^ — "The Roman people
seeing so rich a prey so near at hand^ which had been cut
off, and, as it were, torn away from their own Italy, were
inflamed with such a desire of possessing it, that, as it oould
not be reunited by moles or bridges, they were resolved to
restore it to the continent by arms and war.*' (IfTorus.)

" Hujus oh discordias perpetuas potentiorum injuriis exposita
pulchritudo invitamt.^^ — "The beauty of the island invited,
while the perpetual discords of the native powers exposed it to
attack." {Livy.)

Whenever Sicily was under a democratic govern-
ment, intestine violence, jarring factions, popular tu-
mults, and civil contests disturbed her peace, laid waste
her plains, destroyed her cities, and thinned her in-
habitants with a rage equal to that of foreign wars, and
produced events not less fatal than those consequential
to the entrance of a conquering external foe. When-
ever Sicily has been a province to other states, it has
proved the common fate of all other provinces in being
drained by the prince and harassed by his vicegerent.
When every great city of the island had a prince of its
own, or when the greatest part of the island was under
the dominion of one king, the government was espe-
cially grievous, oppressive, and cruel ; whilst such a
numerous succession of these royal spoilers was in-
flicted on this miserable country, that the name of a
Sicilian king has been made proverbial to this day.
" SicuU per annos sane multos externa simul ac dvilia
hella, et nocentius lUrisque malum^ tyrannidmi pom ;" —
" The Sicilians had suffered for many years both ex-

1734. mSTORY OF SICILY. 345

ternal and civil war, and an evil worse than either — a
tyrannical government." (Livt/.)

A tyrant originally meant nothing more than an
absolute ruler ; but absolute rule being so apt to de-
viate into oppression, the title of Tyrant, which was at
first only synonymous to King, by the general conduct
of kings became at last synonymous to an oppressor.
The little verbal distinctions between absolute, arbi-
trary, and destructive sway were lost in practice — they
were one and the same thing ; and for this reason the
name of Tyrant, or rvpawagj was not more feared or
detested by the Greeks than that of King or Sex was
by the Romans. Among the la.st, even those men who,
in the height of the Soman grandeur and the decline
of Soman virtue, usurped the most unlimited power,
avoided still the odium of calling themselves by that
hateful and detested name, but, sheltering themselves
under the less formidable titles of Emperor and Prince
of the Senate, and vested with the authority of the
Tribunitian power, less obnoxious than that of regal
sway, they failed not, under another denomination of
government, to act all those injustices which the
people, ever more intent on names than things, would
not perhaps have borne had they been inflicted by a
magistrate under a different appellation. The accounts
we have of this island prolong the hardships of foreign
invasion and dominion till the descent made there by
the Carthaginians a little before the time of expulsion
of the kings out of Some.

Xerxes, when he meditated the conquest of all
Greece, fomented these wars of the Carthaginians in
Sicily in order to draw forces out of Greece to main-

346 LORD HEBTEY'8 MEMOIRS. Chap. XT.

tain what the Greeks there possessed, and of course to
leave Greece itself more exposed to the irruptions he
designed there.

Three years the Carthaginians spent in preparations
for this descent on Sicily, and then attacked it with an
army of 300,000 men and 2000 ships of war. How
the address and bravery of Gelon, Tyrant of Syracuse,
saved Sicily from ruin by the destruction of this vast
Carthaginian fleet and army everybody knows, and
that the Carthaginians and Xerxes, who had entered
into this mutual alliance in order to make the conquest
of all Sicily for the first and all Greece for the last,
were both defeated on the same day, the one near
Palermo, the other at Thermopylae, by the memorable
sacrifice of 300 Spartans. Sicily after this became
the theatre of a fierce and bloody contest between the
Athenians and Lacedemonians, the last sending suc-
cours to the Syracusians to defend them against the
assaults of the first. ^^ TotiiLS Grcedce beUum in
SicUiam translatum erat:*^ — " The whole war was trans-
ferred from Greece to Sicily.** (Justin.)

The Carthaginians under the first Hannibal amply
revenged the destruction they had suffered from the
hand of Gelon ; they made a new descent on Sicily,
and with innumerable unspeakable cruelties destroyed
and dismantled many of their cities, and put all the
inhabitants to the sword.

Peace was then made with the Carthaginians by
Dionysius the Elder, but it was short, and only made
in order to prepare for the long and sanguine war that
soon followed.

Immense were the sufferings of Sicily during this war.

1734. HISTORY OF SICILY. 347

as well from their own kings as from their enemies, but
particularly after the accession of the Tyrant Diony-
sius the Younger, who, in the alternate fortunes of
sovereignty, banishment, restoration, and re-exile, was
equally fatal to this distressed country (see Diod. Sic^
b. xvi.) ; for at that time Icetas, Tyrant of the Leon-
tines, and Timoleon, General of the Corinthians (both
called in to assist the two different factions then in
Sicily), together with the Carthaginians (who hoped to
make advantage of these divisions), were all three
afflicting and rending this miserable island at once.

Fyrrhus, King of Epirus, made a descent into Sicily,
and in the space of one year or little more won it and
lost it

^^ SicuK tradentes Pyrrho totius inmlcB imperium qtuB assi-
diis Carthagxniensium bellU vexabaiur ;" — " The Sicilians gave
up to Pyrrhus the entire dominion of the island, which was so
worried by the constant wars of the Carthaginians." {Justin.)

" Pyrrho in Sicilid omnia sibi prona reperiente ;" — " Pyrrhus
finding that everything in Sicily was favourable to him."
{Livy.)

** Pyrrhus maxima Sicuhrum ahcritate exceptus est oppida^
agros^ pecwniasy naves, certatim tradentium ;" — " Pyrrhus was re-
ceived with the greatest alacrity by the Sicilians, who vied with
each other in surrendering towns, lands, money, and ships.*'
{Livy.)

^^ Pyrrhus imperium tarn dto amisit quam acquisierat :^' —
*' Pyrrhus lost the country as rapidly as he had acquired it"
{Justin.)

His arrival and his departure were both marked
with those traces of slaughter and devastation that
always attend such sudden revolutions in a country
where the prize contested for is so valuable and the
contesting parties so powerfid. That such causes con-

348 LORD HERVST'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XY.

stanUy produce such effects was, in all probability,
the opinion of Pyrrhus himself when upon quitting
Sicily he said to his courtiers — ** 0, amicij qualem
Bomanis et Carthaginiensibus palcBstram rdinquimus r*
— ** Oh, my friends, what a fine field for combat do we
abandon to the Romans and Carthaginians I'' {Livy.)
" Affectabat enim ut Pcenus^ ita Bomanus Siciliam ; et
eodem tempore^ paribus uterque votis (zc viribusj imperium
orbis agitabat :" — ^^ The Romans and the Carthaginians
equally coveted Sicily, and at the same time with the
same object and equal forces then contended for the
empire of the world," {Mortis.)

Pyrrhus's prophecy was quickly verified: " Quod
presagium pauIo post longa inter hos bella tot utrimque
submersoB classes tot odes coesce satis superque impleve-
runt ;** — " Which prophecy the long wars that soon
followed, with such a destruction of fleets and such a
slaughter of armies, sufficiently, and more than suffi-
ciently, fulfilled/* (Livy.) Sicily was not only the first,
but the fiercest theatre of that deplorable war between
the Romans and Carthaginians which lasted so many
years, and was pursued with a vigour equal to the incite-
ment, which was nothing less than an universal dominion
of what was then, though unjustly, called the world.

For this great prize Sicily was made the first stage
of combat, and suffered all those misfortunes which two
of the greatest, the bravest, the most potent, and most

* ♦ of nations of any age in alternate conquests
must necessarily inflict on that country that most im-
mediately feels the fluctuations of such power.

At length the Romans became sole masters of this
island, and were the first masters that ever possessed it

1734. mSTORT OF SICILY. 349

entire. What the fertility of its harvests must have been
is easy to conceive, when it was called in the most
flourishing time of the empire " Romce Graruirhim " —
" the granary of Rome."

To the Romans it long continued a province, taxed,
squeezed, impoverished, oppressed, exhausted.

On the declension of the Roman empire in the year
739 and the reign of Theodosius the Younger, Sicily
was subdued and ravaged by that great conqueror
Genseric, King of the Spanish Vandals. Under the
dominion of these barbarians Sicily groaned for near a
hundred years ; after which space it was in the time of
the Emperor Justinian reconquered by his renowned
General, Belisarius.

In the year 827 the Saracens got possession of
Sicily, established themselves there, and maintained
the government of the island, at least of Palermo, for
above two hundred years under their Emirs.

The Saracens were driven out by the Normans
under the command of the two brothers Robert and
Roger Guischard : the last of these, called Roger the
Humpbacked, made himself absolute master of Sicily,
and took the title of Earl. In the person of his son,^
who succeeded him, and was for his tyranny, avarice,
and cruelties called William the Bad, the ancient spirit
of a Dionysius or an Agathocles seemed to revive, as
if cruelty and oppression always attached to the regal
dignity, and that their governor was always to be their
oppressor, and their guardian their destroyer.

ft This is an error: William was son of Roger 11., King of Sicily ,
who himself was grandson of Roger I.

350 LOBD HERVET'B MEMOIRS. Ck^f.XV,

On the death of William, the son of this King, this
island, for want of a legitimate son to that Prince, was
plunged again into all the calamities and horrors of
civil contests. Tancred the Bastard usurped the
throne, and after a short disturbed reign of three years
resigned his crown with his life, leaving a son, who,
after having had his eyes put out, died in prison.

To these troubles soon after succeeded those occa-
sioned by Manfred, natural son to the Emperor Fre-
deric II., which Frederic, in right of his mother, Con-
stance, daughter of William the Bad of Sicily and wife
to the Emperor Henry VI., died in possession of this
island.

Manfred smothered his father, the Emperor Fre-
deric, with a pillow, and poisoned his brother Conrad,
who was the legitimate son of Frederic, and in pos-
session of Sicily — exploits that showed he had quali-
ties which, in case he made himself master of Sicily,
would prevent him deviating from the character of a
true Sicilian King. Under the pretence of making
himself tutor to Conradinus, the son of Conrad, he
usurped the government, and after a reign of eleven
years, almost as troublesome to himself as to his sub-
jects, he was slain in battle, after having been excom-
municated by Pope Urban IV., who was the occasion
of his overthrow by calling in Charles of Anjou to
depose him, which Charles, in prejudice of Conradin,
the true heir, was by the Pope invested with the
sovereignty of Naples and Sicily.

The daughter of the bastard and usurper Manfred,
being married to Peter III. of Arragon, entailed on

1734. HISTORY OF SICILY. 851

Sicily the disputes and misfortunes which her father
had opened there ; for by this pretended right to Sicily,
conveyed through Constance, daughter of Manfred,
to the Princes of Arragon, the successors of Charles of
Anjou were in perpetual war with the Arragonians, till,
in the year 1282, the Sicilians acted that bloody tra-
gedy called the Sicilian Vespers, in which every
Frenchman in the island was massacred in one night
After this massacre the possession of the island fell into
the hands of the Spaniards, who from that time to the
Treaty of Utrecht governed it by viceroys. At the
Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 it was given with the title
of King to the Duke of Savoy, who was crowned at
Palermo, but kept the possession of Sicily only five
years. Philip V., the present King of Spain, who had
yielded this island with reluctance by treaty, tried in
the year 1718 to regain it by force. How he was pre-
vented from making himself master of it by the
English fleet, and why and how it was given to the
Emperor, is already related in these papers.

The Germans from that time to this have behaved
themselves there with that insolence, brutality, and
avarice, so natural to a proud fierce people, that the
Sicilians were not sorry to try again their old masters
the Spaniards, bad as they were ; and at this moment
in which I am now writing Sicily is again the cause
and seat of war between the Germans and Spaniards,
the one trying to maintain the possession of the island,
the other to acquire it

The rapaciousness and cruelty of all these successive
plunderers and tyrants made Sicily miserably sensible
that in all the changes of her masters she was never to

352 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chaf. XV.

taste any change in her adversity ; and, whatever rota-
tion there was in the fortunes of her oppressors^ that
there never was to be any in the fete of those they
oppressed. Carthaginians, Romans, Yandals, Saracens,
French, Spaniards, and Germans, united in demon-
strating this melancholy truth ; and, how different
soever they were in other respects, in this particular at
least they all resembled one another.

But to return from the history of the many misfor-
tunes of Sicily to that of the present misfortunes of the
Emperor, I must come to relate that his Imperial
Majesty's affairs were not under much better manage-
ment, and met with little better success, in the upper
part of Italy than they did in the lower.

The blindness, the infirmity, and incapacity of
Count Merci had made the Court of Vienna determine
to recall him, and send Count Konigseg in his stead ;
but whilst Konigseg was on the road, Merci resolved to
strike a stroke that should either make the Court of
Vienna ashamed to disgrace him, or by which he
would lose his life as well as his command. In short,
he called a council oC war, and determined, against the
opinion and remonstrances of all the general officers,
to give battle to the army of the allies. Prince Louis
of Wirtembei^, cousin to the Queen of England, was
the only general officer who did not oppose this under-
taking, and he rather acquiesced than approved. He
had had a long quarrel with Merci ever since his arrival
in Italy, was but just reconciled to him, and for fear of
being thought desirous, or at least too ready, to open
again that new-healed wound, he rather avoided oppo-
sition than gave his assent. When others, who were

1734. BATTLE OF PARMA. 353

not in the same difficulties of opposing as the Prince of
Wirtemberg, remonstrated against the weakness of this
attempt^ enumerated the dangers that must attend such
an undertaking, and told Merci it was running his head
against a wall, Merci's answer was, " Taimeraia mieux
avoir dix livres de plorah h la tete, qu^une livre de
chagrin au cosur:^* — " I had rather have ten pounds of
lead in my head than one pound of sorrow at my heart.'*
When they urged the profusion of blood and waste of
lives that this measure would make, he said, ^' Generals
were accountable for their courage and for their fidelity,
but not for blood or lives/*

When the King told this particular to Lord Hervey,
he owned it was very true that the Emperor never
looked upon the loss of private soldiers as anything.
Lord Hervey said it was well for mankind that the
Emperor's way of reasoning was not more general ; and
that for his part there was not anybody he had not
rather be than a prince capable of thinking in that
manner, except it was one of his subjects ; nor could he
comprehend this way of reasoning, which was no more
justifiable in point of policy than it was reconcilable
with humanity, since in his opinion a king could no
more look upon any who lavished the lives of his sub-
jects as fit for a general, than he could esteem one who
squandered his revenue proper for a treasurer.

This battle was fought [29th June] under the walls
of Parma, and from Parma received its name.

Merci made a short speech to his troops before he
gave the word to charge, and concluded it with telling
them — " llfaut diner en Parme cu souper en Paradis''
He promises them, too, in case of victory, the plunder

VOL. L 2 a

354 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

of Farma for three days. A man who never read the
particular account of a battle without being tired of it
must be so improper an author to relate one, that I
shall say nothing more of this than that it b^an at
nine in the morning and lasted till it was dark ; that it
was fought across a narrow canal with great fiiry and
great slaughter on both sides; and that the army of
the allies was reckoned to have gained a complete
victory, though they had no other advantage from it
than the remaining masters of the field of battle. The
loss of the allies was computed to be about 7000 men
and 700 officers ; that of the Germans about the same
number, with the death of their General, Count Merci,
who ordered himself to be carried into the thickest
ranks and where the engagement was hottest, and
seemed to have no other design in giving this order
than gracing his exit with the slaughter of those whose
lives had been committed to his care.

The disordered, precipitate retreat of the Imperial-
ists after the battle made their defeat deserve that name
more than the number of men they lost They left all
the wounded as well as the dead upon the field of
battle, and crossed four rivers in their haste to run
from the enemy before they stopped, and left [1200]
men behind them in Guastalla, who were all made
prisoners of war in a few days after. The leaving the
wounded on the spot to take care of themselves, it
seems, is the common humane manner of the Austriana
in victory as well as in defeat; and the compassionate,
just reason they give for it is, the bad economy there
would be in giving more money to cure a sick man
than is necessary to buy a well one.

1734. CAMPAiaN IN ITALY. 355

The army of the allies was commanded in this action
by Monsieur de Coigny, and under him Monsieur de
Broglio — the same who was formerly Ambassador from
France at the Court of England. Both these Generals
had been just made Marshals of France upon the death
of Marshal Yillars, who, upon a constant misxmder-
standing and perpetual squabbles with the King of Sar-
dinia, had been recalled from his command of the army,
and died on his return home at Turin. He died [2 1st
Junej cet. 83] sole Marshal of France, the Duke of
Berwick having been killed a few days before in the
trenches at the siege of Fhilipsburg. When the news
of the Duke of Berwick's death by a cannon-ball was
brought to Marshal Yillars (then dying a lingering
death of fever, chagrin, and of a bloody flux), he said —
" Monsieur de Berwick Aoit toujours heureux: U Vest
autant dans sa mart qtCU Vitoit dans sa vie.**

Though public rejoicings were ordered throughout
all France for this victory in Italy, yet it cost the lives
of so many people of condition that half Faris at this
season was in private mourning; all the old women
weeping their husbands or their sons, and all the young
ones a father, a lover, or a brother.

The King of Sardinia was not present at the battle.
The Queen, who died a few months after, was then
ill at [Turin]. The King, not expecting any im-
mediate action, came thither to make her a visit, and
returned to the camp the day after the action. The
conduct of Count Merci on this occasion was con-
demned by everybody except the Emperor, who
naturally, one might have imagined, would have con-
demned it most But when his Imperial Majesty
heard his courtiers censuring his behaviour as rash and

2 a2

356 LORD HEllYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

injudicious, he very unexpectedly and roughly cut
them short by saying, ^^Lesmorts^ Messieurs^ onttoujours
tortr

Monsieur de Eonigseg, at his arrival in Italy, found
the Imperial army in the most miserable condition, and
near 17,000 men wanting to complete the number of
which it consisted when the Germans took the field at
the beginning of the campaign.

It was remarkable that he found these two armies
just in the same situation in which they had been in
1703, when he served under Marshal Starembei^, and
the Duke of Vendome commanded the French, who
were then, as now, just going to besiege Mirandola.
Not long after Monsieur de Eonigseg took the com-
mand of the Imperial army, the Germans again gave
battle to the allies. The army of the allies was en-
camped in two separate bodies, and on different sides
of a small river called the Sechia : that body of troops
which was encamped the nearest to the Imperial army
consisted of [25 or 30] battalions under the command
of Marshal Broglio, whom Monsieur de Konigseg one
night \\Ath Sept^^ surprised in his quarters and entirely
defeated, killing many of his men, taking many pri-
soners, and putting the rest to the most confused flight.
Their whole baggage, amounting to a great value, was
the booty of the German soldiers, who, like the rest of
their countrymen, never slip any occasion to lay hold
of any seizable half-crown. This was, as some think,
the occasion of the army of the allies not being entirely
routed ; for many were of opinion that, had the Impe-
rialists, immediately after this action, attacked the
other part of the camp of the allies whilst the great
consternation spread throughout the troops by this

1734. MARSHAL BROGLIO'S ESCAPE, 357

blow was fresh and unrecovered, they might have safely
cut off the whole of the enemy ; but that, whilst the
German soldiers were plundering, and the Austrian
General deliberating, three days elapsed, and the
attack was made [19^A Sept'] too late on a recovered
and entrenched enemy. This battle, called the Battle
of Guastalla, was fought with great bravery and great
slaughter on both sides. In these two actions, between
which there was, as I have said, only the space of three
days, many officers of distinction were killed in both
armies, and about 8000 men on each side.

The Marshal Broglio's disgrace for having been sur-
prised in his quarters, and losing, for want of common
guard and watch, all the men committed to his care,
was not only the subject of every Gazette in Europe,
but the topic of every conversation, and the burden of
ten thousand ballads that were sung in all Paris and all
France to ridicule his negligent conduct and his extra-
ordinary flight, which was made in his shirt upon a
cart-horse, his breeches in his hand, and his two sons
riding before him. He was fast asleep when a sentinel
at the door of his tent first came in to tell him the
Germans were in his camp ; and he had just time to
make his escape in the manner which I have described.
It was said, that, whilst he was in the stable in his shirt
bridling his cart-horse, he was seized as a prisoner by
one of the German soldiers, who knew him not, nor in
the least imagined this prize to be a Marshal of France.
The Marshal told the German trooper he was an under-
cook in Monsieur de Broglio's kitchen, not worth his
care, and begged his release ; upon which the trooper
gave him a kick and let him go.

358 LORD HERVBTS MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

The Marshal de Broglio's situation on this occasion
was just that of Cerialis, thus described by Tacitus : —
" Dua semisomnuSy ac prope inteetus^ errore hostium
servatuvy et quamquam perictdum captwitatia evadssety
infamiam non vitavit ;" — " The General, half asleep
and almost naked, was saved by a mistake of the
enemy ; but though he avoided the danger of being
taken prisoner, he did not escape the in&my of his
own negligence."

Thus went affairs in Italy. I must now go back to
the opening of the campaign on the Rhine, when
Marshal Berwick divided his army, which consisted
of above 100,000 men, into two bodies, with one of
which he besieged Fhilipsburg, and with the other
(which was strongly entrenched) he covered the be-
sieging army.

As soon as the auxiliaries joined Prince Eugene, the
first of which were 6000 Hanoverians, he marched
towards Fhilipsburg with his whole army, which now,
with the Hanoverians, the Danes, the Prussians, the
Suabians, the Franconians, and other quotas furnished
by the Princes and Circles of the Empire, amounted
nominally to about fourscore thousand men. Both
armies continued for some weeks within musketnshot of
each other, during which time all Europe expected
every day to hear they were engaged in a general
battle, and the whole world seemed to agree it was im-
possible they should separate without an action — ^who*
ever moved first running the risk of being cut in pieces.
When Marshal Berwick's head was shot off by a ran-
dom shot in the trenches, it was concluded that Prince
Eugene would take advantage of the consternation

1734. SIEGE OF FHILIPSBX7KG. 359

which the loss of a general always occasions in an
army to attack the French camp; but whether he
found it too strongly entrenched to venture such an
undertaking, or thought the Emperor's affairs in such a
situation that hazarding a battle at the gate of Ger-
many was playing too deep^ I know not. Whatever
his motive was, it is certain he remained in inaction,
and had the mortification of being forced to suffer
Fhilipsbui^ 'to be taken in his sight, though he had
promised the Governor to relieve him.

I know the French did not expect to have carried
their point with so little resistance. Monsieur Gha-
vigny, a little before the .town surrendered, having
shown me a letter from Monsieur de Belleisle (who for-
merly commanded at the siege of Strasburg), in which
I remember these words, — " Une mollesse surprenante
rhgne par tout dans les troupes Imp^riales, mms nous
ne pouvons pas espSrer que cette TnoUesse puisse se re-
pandre h un tel point que Monsieur le Prince JEughne
nous verra prendre PhUipsbourgy les bras croish"

On the death of the Duke of Berwick, Monsieur
d*Asfeldt and Monsieur de Noailles were created Mar-
shals of France, and the principal command of the
army on the Rhine (where they both were) was given
to the former.

Monsieur Witgenau, Governor of Philipsburg, be-
haved extremely well, but the garrison infemously ill,
there being near 4000 men in the place, with ammuni-
tion and provisions sufficient to have held out a month
longer, when the garrison obliged the Governor to sur-
render [18#A /wZy], and refused to strike another stroke
to defend the town, though the walls of the main body

3b0 LOKD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

of the place were still entire, and nothing but the horn
and crown works and out-fortifications yet taken.

The besiegers were so much inconvenienced by the
overflowings of the Bhine, so afflicted by sickness, and
so distressed by the scarcity of provisions, that the
French said, notwithstanding the fortitude and resolu-
tion with which the troops behaved, in case the town
had held out a week longer, they must have raised the
siege.

When the Prince of Conti complimented the Go-
vernor after the capitulation, as he was marching out
of the town, upon the brave defence he had made, the
Governor said, with great civility to his enemies and
great indignation against his own men, that, had he
had Frenchmen to command, the town had been yet
untaken.

The night the news came to England that Fhilips-
burg was taken, the Princess Royal, as Lord Hervey
was leading her to her own apartment after the draw-
ing-room, shrugged up her shoulders and said, " Was
there ever anything so unaccountable as the temper of
papa? He has been snapping and snubbing every
mortal for this week, because he began to think Phi-
lipsburg would be taken; and this very day that he
hears it actually is taken he is in as good humour as
ever I saw him in my life. MaiSy pour vcms dire la
vSritSj je trouve cela si bizarre^ et (entre nous) si sotj
que f enrage de sa bonne humeur encore plus qvs je ne
faisois de sa mauvaise.** " Perhaps," answered Lord
Hervey, " he may be about Philipsburg as David was
about the child, who, whilst it was sick, fasted, lay upon
the earth, and covered himself with ashes ; but» the

1734. BOTH ARMIES RETREAT. 361

moment it was dead, got up, shaved his beard, and
drank wine." " It may he like David " (replied the
Princess Royal), ^^hut lam sure it is not like Solomon J'

It was reported at this time that the Emperor, not-
withstanding all the disadvantages under which Prince
Eugene must have forced the French to an engagement
before Philipsburg, blamed him for not doing it; there
being at that time a strong faction against Prince
Eugene at Vienna, and this being the way of reasoning
with which they had possessed the Emperor : — That in
case the Imperialists could beat the French, they might
march into France and do what they pleased ; and in
case they were beaten, that the maritime powers, who
as yet remained neuter, would be obliged to take part
in his quarrel. In Prince Eugene's camp there were,
besides several other great princes, the King of Prussia,
his eldest son, and the Prince of Orange. When the
last went thither the Princess Royal returned [29th
June^ to England.

After the surrender of Philipsburg, the French
and the Imperialists, notwithstanding the impossi-
bility insisted on by all mankind of their parting with-
out blows, separated very quietly by a mutual retreat:
«o easy is it in any situation for two great armies
to find means either to fight or let it alone, when
each antagonist wills the same thing. The sickness
that raged in the French camp, and the fatigue the
troops had undergone during the siege, made them
in all probability ready enough to decline a general
battle ; and their army being able, besides the strength
of their entrenchments before, to fortify themselves now
behind, by retiring under the cannon of Philipsburg,

362 LORD HEBYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XY.

made the disadvantage on which Prince Eugene must
have attacked them too great for him to undertake it.
The same policy too that made the Court of Vienna
desire a battle might perhaps induce the Court of
France to avoid it ; the latter fearing perhaps as much
as the first wished to bring things to such an extremity
as should oblige England and Holland to take part in
this squabble, farther than by their pacific good offices
to compose it

Nor was it wonderful that Prince Eugene should be
slow to take any hints given him from his Court to
pursue more violent and more hazardous measures;
since nothing could be more natural than for a man of
his age and character to fear bringing the one into
disgrace, and throwing any shade over the lustre of the
other.*

Whilst these things were doing on the Rhine, I must
now relate how matters were carried on in the North.
King Stanislaus, with the Primate, and Monti, the
French ambassador, were retired to Dantzic, received
by the magistrates of that place, and shut up there by the
Russians, who, after burning, pillaging, and laying waste
every town and field in Poland, marched to Dantzic
under the command of their General, Count Munich,
summoned the Dantzicers to surrender the town and
give up Stanislaus, and, upon their refusal, formed the
siege of that place.

The Dantzicers, having taken money from France to

6 Prince Eugene was now seventj-one, and the historians quote this
afiair of Philipsburg as a proof that he had no longer the energy and
activity necessary for command. They add (which indeed is saying the
same thing in other words) that he was afraid of risking his former repu-
tation.

1734. SIEGE OF DANTZIC. 363

receive Stanislaus, and expecting succours from thence
every hour to relieve them, stood the siege with great
firmness, bravery, and resolution — the attack was
formed, and the defence made, with equal vigour on
both sides.

The Elector of Saxony, in the mean time, choosing^
whilst the Muscovites marched to Dantzic, rather to be
fought for than to fight, took a short turn^ and to the
astonishment of all Europe, left the Russian army just
at this juncture, and went to Dresden to settle the
affairs of his electorate, which, as he pretended^ required
his immediate presence.

This happening to be the season too for the fair of
Leipsic, and his presence being equally necessary there,
his Electoral Highness took this opportunity to go and
partake of those recreations, and, whilst tibe Russians
were cannonading and bombarding Dantzic in his
cause, he was diverting himself with seeing harlequin-
ades and rope-dancers, and buying snuff-boxes and
toothpick-cases for the Polish ladies at the fair. By
which means, the worthy cause of all this strife, who
had first, like a fool, drawn himself into this quarrel
when he should have kept out of it, now, like a coward,
drew himself out of it when he ought to have kept in
it, and acted as much contrary to his honour in not en-
deavouring, when he was embarked, to maintain the
crown of Poland, as he had acted contrary to his in-
terest in ever attempting to acquire it

When one sees the blood of brave and honest fellows
shed, and hears of the lives of thousands devoted to the
foolish glory and mistaken interest of such princely
idols, even in this enlightened age of the world, how

364 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

can one be surprised if superstition and bigotry in the
earlier and darker ages of it could induce Egyptian
fathers to sacrifice their sons to onions and monkeys ?
or how can one have a greater reverence for those who
are so stupidly loyal than for those who were so igno-
rantly pious ?

I cannot here pass over in silence a very gallant
action of Count Fl&lo,^ a man bred in camps, but now
ambassador from France at the Court of Denmark. A
miserable little succour of about 1800 men was sent
by France to throw themselves, if they could, into
Dantzic; they attempted it, were repulsed, and, as
Count Plelo thought, with too little resistance ; he there-
fore undertook to rally them, put himself at their head,
and marched first, showed them the way to the only
open entrance into the town, and endeavoured to ani-
mate them by words as well as example. But whilst
he was exciting them to face and brave the dangers that
opposed this attempt of entering the town, by perpe-
tually crying out " Avancez 1 avancez /" he was slain by
several wounds, which it is generally thought he received
not firom the enemy, but from his own followers, who
were instigated, as it was conjectured, to this infamous
act by some of their superiors, who had been piqued at
the reproaches of Count Plfelo, and grudged him the
chance of gaining that reputation in renewing this
attempt, which they had lost by giving it up.

When the King of England related this history of

f Louis Hyppolite de Brehan, Count de PI^Io, a gentleman of Brittanj,
though ** bred in camps," had already attained a certain distinction in litera-
ture by some astronomical tracts, and by some light poetry. He was killed
at the age of thirty-five. The French corps, not being able to make their
way into Dantzic, soon after capitulated to the number of 2700.

1784. StTRRENDER OF DANTZIC. 365

Count Plfelo to his courtiers at Richmond, he said,
with tears in his eyes, " It was a brave action ; he was
a fine fellow. I think a prince is too happy who has
such servants." He to whom his Majesty addressed ^
this discourse replied, " I think, Sir, those subjects still
more happy who are governed by a prince that de-
serves such servants." The King loved heroism and
flattery both so well, that he seemed almost as much
pleased with the answer as with the action.

Soon after this adventure, the fort of Wechsel-
munde, that commands the mouth of the Vistula, on
which Dantzic is situated, being taken by the Musco-
vites [23rd June\y all communication with the town
from the sea (which was the only communication it
had long had) was cut ofi^, and Dantzic at last, after a
brave and obstinate defence, was obliged to capitulate
\yth July'].

The night before the chamade was beat, Stanislaus
made his escape to Koningsberg in the habit of a pea-
sant, and attended by only one valet de chambre, leav-
ing behind him a letter of thanks to the magistrates for
the favours he had received at their hands, and declar-
ing in the most pathetic terms the concern with which
he found himself obliged to desert those whom no
hardships, no fears, and no threats had been able to
prevail with to abandon him.®

The conditions on which the Russian General obliged
the Dantzicers to surrender were very severe, with re-
gard to the vast sum he forced them to pay towards

8 There is in the ' Historical Register' for 1736 a long and curious letter
from King Stanislaus, giving an account of his very difficult flight and nar-
row escape.

i

366 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XY.

the expenses of the war (four millioa rix dollars), and
all of them were constrained to acknowledge King Au-
gustus, and to take an oath of allegiance to him as their
lawfid sovereign.

The Primate alone refused to take the oath, and
was for this refusal sent close prisoner to Elbing, and
afterwards to Thorn, where he persisted, unterrified by
threats and unallured by promises, in constant fidelity
to King Stanislaus. His behaviour was great, and his
conduct uniform. Monti was also confined with the
Primate, contrary, as the French alleged, to the law
of nations, and in violation of the sacred title of ambas-
sador. The Bussians excused this step by saying that
the French had been the aggressors in taking a frigate
of theirs without any previous declaration of war ; and
by Monti's acting in opposition to them.

Whilst the arms of France were thus employed in
Italy and on the Bhine, and thus unemployed at
Dantzic, there were great murmurs throughout all
that kingdom against the Cardinal's conduct, and great
fault found with the orders and instructions he had given
in every part of the world where France was concerned.

In the first place he was extremely censured for per-
mitting the Spaniards to separate themselves in Italy
from the army of the Allies, and sufiering them to go
and do their own particular business in seating Don
Carlos on the throne of Naples before the common
cause was served and the Emperor driven out of the
upper part of Italy.

In the next place, his instructions to the generals on
the Rhine were no better approved than his passive
conduct with regard to the separation of the Spaniards

1734. POLICY OP CARDINAL PLEUHY. 267

in Italy. Everybody could see and blame the error of
not suffering Prince Eugene to be attacked before the
auxiliaries joined him, when he had only an army of
22,000 men ; and people equally condemned his order-
ing the useless siege of Fhilipsburg to be undertaken,
instead of this stroke, which, as the French said, would
have put them into a condition of making what irrup-
tions they pleased into the empire, or of putting an
honourable and immediate end to the war, and making
peace with the Emperor on what terms they thought
fit

The Cardinal was likewise reproached with giving
up the honour of France in the most essential point by
sending no succours to Dantzic There was nobody in
Paris who did not descant on the infamy it brought
upon the King to suffer his father-in-law to be so aban-
doned and exposed ; and how little justice or gratitude
there was, in permitting those who had so hospitably
received and so bravely defended him to be given up
to the resentment of the common enemy. They
further added, that France must rather incur ridicule
than acquire glory by sending her forces, like sb many
Don Quixotes, to make conquests and gain kingdoms
for other princes, whilst the father of their own Queen
was hunted out of his ; and the chief cause of the war
so ill prosecuted and maintained, that the only point
France pretended originally to have in view, or in
which she was really concerned, was given up and
carried against her.

The Cardinal excused himself with regard to Italy,
by saying he had protested against the separation of
the Spaniards, but had not been able to prevent it

368 LORD HBRVET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

The Queen of Spain was so bent on that expedition
for her son, that his Eminence said there was no
middle way for him to take ; he was obliged either to
consent to the attack of Naples, or to dissolve the
triple alliance. As to the neglect of giving battle to
Prince Engine when he was at the head of only
22,000 men, the Cardinal said he had never desired to
push this war to extremities, nor to do anything that
should look as if the ruin of the empire, or enlarging
the dominions of France, was designed ; all he desired
was to humble the pride of the Court of Vienna and
the House of Austria, and to do justice to the insulted
honour of his master in maintaining the rights of the
King his father-in-law.

This made people say that the scheme of his Emi-
nence then was to put France to the expense of armies
without allowing them the liberty to fight ; and that,
according to this way of reasoning, he was so pacifically
and charitably inclined, that he was as much afraid of
hurting his enemies as his friends, and more appre-
hensive of giving too much annoyance to the first than
procuring too little benefit to the last.

But most people imagined the Cardinal's reason at
this time for acting as he did was (as I have already
mentioned) the fear of bearing so hard on the Emperor
as might alarm England and Holland, and induce
those two powers, who were now mediators for peace,
to make themselves parties in the war. It was cer-
tainly no oversight in the French councils that pre-
vented Prince Eugene being attacked; the Duke of
Berwick having made the proposal to the Cardinal,
and the Cardinal, at the same time that he rejected it,

1734. POLICY OP CARDINAL PLEURY. 369

making a merit to the ministers of England and Hol-
land of his moderation in so doing.

But that which was most of all cried out against was
the sending no succours to Dantzic ; and as the Car-
dinal in his justification could not publicly give the real
reasons for this seeming negligence and dishonourable
omission, he was forced to stand all the irksome re-
proach of it in a patient and passive silence.

. The true state of this case, I believe, was, though
France had at this time a fleet of about ninety sail
riding m the Channel, ready to convey troops to Dantzic,
yet, the English lying at the same time in the Downs in
sight of the French coasts, the Cardinal did not dare
to leave the shores of France naked, for fear the Eng-
lish, who were then offering their mediation to adjust
the disputes of Europe, might have taken that oppor-
tunity to oblige France to accept of what terms of
accommodation they thought proper, by threatening, in
case France refused to comply, to make a descent into
their country on the west, whilst all their forces were
employed in the east and the south, and their fleet
sailed into the north.*

Some people imagined that Spain h4d at present so
great an influence on the councils of France, that she
insisted on the French fleet continuing where it was to

* This conjecture is altogether improbable— indeed almost absurd : there
was no colour of danger from England ; nor was it necessary to have sent
ninety sail to convey succours to Dantzic. A better reason would have been,
that the holding out of Dantzic would have cost money and lives, without
any change in the ultimate result of the contest except, perhaps, a little more
discredit ; and, after all, 2700 men would have been no inconsiderable rein-
forcement to a garrison : but Lord Hervey, who had hoped so sanguinely
for Stanislaus's success, seems to have been personally piqued at his failure,
and to have looked at the whole affair with a prejudiced eye.
VOL. L 2 B

370 LORD HERVBrS MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

keep the English in awe, and prevent our fleet sailing
to the Mediterranean ; the Spaniards still remembering
the year eighteen, when they had then, as now, a de-
sign of invading Sicily, and were defeated in that
design by the interposition of Lord Torrington. It
was said, the Spaniards feared the same game might be
played over again, and therefore pressed France to
keep this check upon England at home, tiiat England
might be none upon them in the Mediterranean*

This I give only as conjecture, for, whether it was
the fears of Spain for the success of their intended
expedition to Sicily, or the apprehensions of France in
leaving their own coasts defenceless, or both combined,
that prevented the French fleet from sailing to the
relief of Dantzic, was never certainly, or at least pub-
licly and generally, known.

During these transactions abroad, the King was in
the utmost anxiety at home. The battles of Bitonto
and Parma, the surrender of Fhilipsbui^, and the bad
situation of the Emperor's affiiirs in every quarter,
gave his Majesty the utmost solicitude to exert himself
in the defence of the House of Austria, and to put
some stop to the rapid triumphs of the House of Bour-
bon. For though the King was ready to allow all the
personal faults of the Emperor, and was not without
resentment for the treatment he himself had met with
from the Court of Vienna, yet his hatred to the French
was so strong, and his leaning to an Imperial cause so
prevalent, that he could not help wishing to distress
the one and support the other, in spite of all inferior,
collateral, or personal considerations.

In all occurrences he could not help remembering that,

17SC

THE KING EAGER FOR WAR.

371

as Elector of Hanover, he was a part of the Empire, and
the Emperor at the head of it ; and these prejudices,
operating in every consideration where his interest as
King of England ought only to have been weighed, gave
his Minister, who consulted only the interest of Eng«
land, perpetual difficulties to surmount, whenever he
was persuading his Majesty to adhere solely to that.

The King's love for armies, his contempt for civil
affairs, and the great capacity he thought he possessed
for military exploits, inclined him still with greater
violence to be meddling, and warped him yet more to
the side of war. He used almost daily and hourly,
during the beginning of this summer, to be telling Sir
Bobert Walpole with what eagerness he glowed to pull
the laurels from the brows of the French generals,
to bind his own temples ; that it was with the sword
alone he desired to keep the balance of Europe ; that i
war and action were his sole pleasures ; that age was /
coming fast upon him ; and that, if he lost the oppor- 1
tunity of this bustle, no other occasion possibly might/
offer in which he should be able to distinguish himself,:
or gather those glories which were now ready at his ^
hand. He could not bear, he said, the thought of grow-
ing old in peace, and rusting in the cabinet, whilst other
princes were busied in war and shining in the field ;
but what provoked him most of all, he confessed, was
to reflect that, whilst he was only busied in treaties,
letters^ and despatehes, his booby brother, the brutal
and cowardly King of Prussia,^® should pass his time in
camps, and in the midst of arms, neither desirous of the/

s>^

loSeeoNtoip. 137.

2b2

sT

372 LORD HERVErS MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

glory nor fit for the employment ; whilst he, who coveted
the one and was trained for the other, was, for cold
prudential reasons, debarred the pleasure of indulging
his inclination, and deprived of the advantage of show-
ing his abilities.

This was the language he perpetually held, and in
this manner was he for ever declaiming to Sir Bobert
Walpole, whilst all private business and domestic affiiirs
were at a full stand, and no answer to be got from him
to the solicitation of any person whatsoever. When-
ever Sir Robert Walpole, with the business of twenty
difierent people taken down in abridgment upon his
paper of notes, went into the King's closet to speak to
him on those heads, the King always began to harangue
on the military topic, and, after a declamation of about
an hour long, dismissed Sir Robert without one of the
things settled on which he came prepared to speak, and
'. often without giving him opportunity barely to men-
tion them."

This conduct bore every way hard upon Sir Robert
Walpole — in the first place, as it pressed him so close
to come into the measure of war, which he was deter-
mined to keep out of; and in the next, as it forced
him to find repeated excuses to put people off who were
every day teazing him for answers to their solicitations ;
for, as everybody is anxious in their own case, and all
imagined that decision depended entirely on Sir
Robert's will, so whatever pains they felt from suspense

>i All the ministera of George II/s great-grandaon, George IV., could
bear witness to the adroitness and success with which he so turned conversa-
tions as to prevent their entering on anj subject disagreeable to him, which,
with a wonderful sagacity, he used to foresee.

1734. THE QtTEEN WISHES FOB WAR. 373

were placed to his account. The hopes he gave and
the promises he made them were looked upon as minis-
terial arts to palliate delay, and whatever failed or was
postponed from his want of power to prevent it was im-
puted to him as the effect of negligence or insincerity.
But the circumstance that gave Sir Robert Walpole
the most trouble of all was that with regard to the war
he found the Queen as unmanageable and opinionated
as the King. There are local prejudices in all people's
composition, imbibed from the place of their birth, the
seat of their education, and the residence of their youth,
that are hardly ever quite eradicated, and operate much
stronger than those who are influenced by them are
apt to imagine; and the Queen, with all her good
sense, was actuated by these prejudices in a degree
nothing short of that in which they biassed the King.
Wherever the interest of Germany and the honour of
the Empire were concerned, her thoughts and reasonings
were often as German and Imperial as if England had
been out of the question ; and there were few incon-
veniences and dangers to which she would not have
exposed this country rather than give occasion to its
being said that the Empire suffered affronts unretorted,
and the House of Austria injuries unrevenged, whilst
she, a German by birth, sat upon this throne an idle
spectatress, able to assist and not willing to interpose.

Besides her natural propensity to the interest of
Germany, she was constantly plied on this side of the
question, and warmed as hst as Sir Robert Walpole
cooled her, by one Hatolf, the King's sole minister in
England for the affairs of his Electorate — a clear-
sighted, artful fellow, who was devoted to the interest

374 LORD HERYErS MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

of Germany and the Court of Vienna, and had more
weight with the Queen next to Sir Robert than any man
that had access to her. He was a man of great temper,
and could reason with decency; and yet was full as hard
to be either convinced or persuaded as his master.

The Queen, tired of going between this man and
Sir Robert Walpole to report and interpret, and not
being so much mistress of their arguments in detail,
made Monsieur Hatolf put his system of politics and
his plan for the conduct of England at this juncture
into writing. In this paper» though the substance of it
was little better than treating England as a province
to the Empire, yet he reasoned so art&lly and so con-
formably to the Queen's sentiments and inclination,
gave up the interest of this country so plausibly, and
argued so strongly for the Emperor on the foot of
preserving the balance of Europe, that Sir Robert
Walpole told Lord Hervey he never saw any memorial
better drawn, or more dexterously calculated, by im-
proving the Queen's partiality and piquing her pride,
to carry the point he was labouring to bring about.

Hatolf set ibrth in the most formidable colours the
growing power of France and the House of Bourbon ;
he said all the reasons that induced this country to
engage in King William's and Queen Anne's war ought
to operate much stronger now, as France was more
powerful and in better circumstances, and that, this
nation having so cheerfully come into those wars, he
could not conceive why Sir Robert Walpole should
imagine people would reason so differently now. He
insisted upon it that without help from England the
Empire was absolutely at the mercy of France ; and

1734. ARGXJMBNTS FOR PEACB AND WAR. 375

though the lenity or indolence of the Cardinal had
prevented France from the exertion of her power, yet,
as the Cardinal was above fourscore years of age, his
life was but a bad tenure for the balance of Europe,
and that a more active successor would quickly prove
how fatally we had neglected to oppose what might
then be too strong for us to stop.

This paper, written in French, the Queen gave to
Sir Bobert Walpole, ordering him to consider it and
give her his answer to it in English. Sir Bobert
Walpole answered it paragraph by paragraph,^' and in
this answer had an opportunity of methodizing, reca-
pitulating, and enforcing every argument he had before
made use of either to the King or the Queen to deter
them from following their inclination and taking part
in this war.

When Sir Bobert Walpole gave Lord Hervey an
account of these two papers, he said he had at the same
time told the Queen that she knew it had been always
his opinion ever since this quarrel began in Europe
that England ought to have nothing to do with it but
to compose it ; that if it continued and England took
any part in it, her crown would at last as surely
come to be fought for " as the orown of Poland ; and

i> See in Coxe's Appendix Beyeral papers of Sir Robert's own in de-
fence of his policy.

IS Sir Robert more than once warned €reorge II. that his BritiBh crown
would be fought for on British ground-— a prophecy fulfilled a few months
after his death in 1745. Posterity is pretty well agreed in approving
the peaceable policy pursued by Walpde, and advocated by Lord Hervey ,
under the then circumstances ; but, on the other hand, it must be admitted
that the acquisition of Lorraine by France disturbed the balance of Europe
to a degree that Europe never has recovered ; and, as a general question, it
cannot be doubted that Austria is a natural ally of England, because France
has been, and always must be, the most formidable enemy to both.

376 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV.

then bade her judge and determine whether the Em-
peror in justice or in policy ought to receive that
support from her that she seemed so desirous to give
him.

Lord Hervey approved of everything Sir Bohert
had written, but still more of what he had said, and
told him his last argument, in his opinion, was much
the most likely to prevail ; for, notwithstanding her
partiality to the Empire, " if I know anything of her
Majesty, the shadow of the Pretender will beat the
whole Germanic body."

Sir Bobert said it was true, and that he had always
recourse to that argument whenever he found his others
make less impression than he wished. This great
minister, besides the interest of England (which I
think he had sincerely at heart), was induced by some
personal considerations to stick firm to the point of
keeping this nation out of the war if possible. In the
first place, to avoid the unpopularity of advising war
and creating new clamour against his Administration ;
in the next, he knew the ungrateful task of raising
money to support war would all fall to his share ; and
added to this, I believe he was not without apprehen-
sion that more military business might throw the power
he now possessed into the hands of military men.
Whatever his reasons and motives were, it is certain
he was always counsel on the side of peace ; and though
he pleaded that cause singly against the King, the
Queen, and all about them, hitherto he carried his
point and kept things quiet. The Duke of Newcastle,
who always talked as his master talked, echoed back
all the big words his Majesty uttered, and expatiated

1784. OPINIONS OF THE CABINET. 377

for ever on regaining Italy for the Emperor, chas-
tising Spain, and humbling the impertinent pride of
France. His Grace's predominant sensation was fear ;
and though the moment the war had been declared all
the difficulties appendent to that measure would have
kept him in incessant panics, yet, the fear of contra-
dicting the King being the present fear, and the
present fear in all weak minds getting the better of
every other, he promoted that from timidity which, had
he had foresight sufficient to discern consequences,
the same motive would have made him the first to
oppose.

The Duke of Grafton, who loved making his court
as well as the Duke of Newcastle, talked in the same
strain and for the same reasons, but could never make
any great compliment to the King and Queen of em-
bracing their opinion, as he never understood things
enough to have one of his own to sacrifice, and was
rather obliged to them for giving him the appearance
of an opinion, when without that assistance he would
have been as much at a loss what to say as what to
think.

Lord Grantham was a degree still lower, and had
the animal gift of reasoning in so small a proportion
that his existence was barely distinguished from a ve-
getable. His Lordship never got fiirther upon this
chapter than to declare and often to repeat, in very
bad English, " I hate the French, and I hope as we
shall beat the French.'* Mr. Poyntz, Governor to the
Duke," a man of learning, of sense, and of reputation,

14 The Right Honourable Stephen Pojrntz had been one of the ministers
to the Congress at Soissons.

^

378 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XT.

was another who helped to strengthen her Majesty in
this way of thinking ; but whether he spoke his opinion
or only aimed at making his court I know not — Sir
Robert Walpole thought the firsts I thoij^ht the last.

Lord Harrington, who with all his seeming phlegm
was as tenacious of an opinion when his indolence
would suffer him to form one as any man living, leaned
strongly to the side of war ; but his credit at Court ran
very low, and little deference was ever paid to his
sentiments either by the King or Queen but when they
tallied with their own, and in that case their Majesties
> would sometimes seem to do what I fear is too common
with all mankind, which is to flatter ourselves that we
show some regard to the judgment of others, when in
reality we only pay it to the rebound of our own.

Lord Harrington's understanding had very odd luck
in the world, for it was as much underrated after he
came to be Secretary of State as it had been overrated
before. The public seemed to be stating a sort of
account debtor and creditor to his capacity, and to be
determined to take from it now in the same proportion
that it had added to it formerly. His parts in reality
were of the common run of mankind. He was well
bred, a man of honour, and fortunate, loved pleasure,
and was infinitely lazy. The Queen once in speaking
of him said, ^^ There is a heavy insipid sloth in that
man that puts me out of all patience. He must have
six hours to dress, six more to dine, six more for his
mistress, and six more to sleep, and there, for a minis-
ter, are the four-and-twenty admirably well disposed of;
and if now and then he borrows six of those hours to
do anything relating to his office, it is for something

1734. ^OBD HARBINGTON. 379

that might be done in six minutes and ought to have
been done six days before."

Horace Walpole was, for the reasons I have before
mentioned, as much for war as his brother was against
it, and was as busy in Holland to make the Dutch act
against their interest as he was ready at home to sacri-
fice ours ; but happily for this country he succeeded no
better than he judged.

It is no great matter what posterity thinks or says of
one, but if it were I would pay less deference to truth
and more to my own reputation in the characters I
give of people, since no one who did not live in these
times will, I dare say, believe but some of those I
describe in these papers must have had some hard fea-
tures and deformities exaggerated and heightened by
the malice and ill-nature of the painter who drew them.
Others perhaps will say that at least no painter is
obliged to draw every wart or wen or hump-back in
its foil proportion, and that I might have softened
these blemishes where I found them. But I am deter-
mined to report everything just as it is, or at least just
as it appears to me ; and those who have a curiosity
to see courts and courtiers dissected must bear with the
dirt they find in laying open such minds with as little
nicety and as much patience as in a dissection of their
bodies, if they wanted to see that operation, they must
submit to the disgust

Count Einski, the Emperors Ambassador at this
Court (who possessed the two Imperial characteristics
of dulness and pride in the supreme degree), notwith-
standing the distress his master's affiiirs were in, was as
refiractory when anything was asked of him, and as

;

^i

380 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XV-

peremptory when he demanded anything of anybody
else, as he could have been had the Emperor gained as
many victories as he had suffered defeats. The Queen,
as he was riding by her chaise one day at a stag-chase,
reproached him with this stiffiiess, and said people
when they wanted anything mightily should only think
of the means to obtain it This was said with regard
to the haughty and impertinent manner in which the
Emperor asked, or rather expected, at this time the
assistance of the Dutch. ^' If a handkerchief lay before
me," said the Queen, " and I felt I had a dirty nose,
my good Count Einski, do you think I should beckon
the handkerchief to come to me, or stoop to take
it up?"

Einski was at this time so exasperated against Sir
Robert Walpole, to whose counsels and power he
thought it was owing that the Emperor was unassisted,
that he would hardly pay him the common civility of
a bow ; and every letter that he wrote to Vienna that
was intercepted by the Government here was found as
iull of invectives against Sir Robert Walpole's conduct
as any of the * Craftsmen*

The reason of this was that the Eing, loving to make
a figure to others by adopting those things for his own
that had been said to him with weight, iised to talk of
the Emperor's absurd conduct to Einski in the draw-
ing-room in German, in the very same strain that Sir
Robert had talked of it to him in English in the closet ;
and this being a style so very different from the lan-
guage the Eing had held some months ago, Einski
had just sense enough to discern who must have
wrought this change, and abused Sir Robert for it as

1734.

PEACE PRESERVED.

381

violently as he hated him. This made Sir Bobert
odious at Vienna, but it had so little effect here that by
the latter end of this summer Sir Robert had brought
the King so much into his way of thinking that the
King one day said to him, ^^ I have followed your ad-
vice, Walpole, in keeping quiet^ contrary often to my
own opinion, and sometimes I have thought contrary
even to my honour ; but I am convinced you advised
me well: the overtures of friendship that are now
made to me by every party in this formidable alliance,
and the solicitations I receive from all quarters to
mediate in the present disputes, show me plainly that
hitherto we are right, and I acknowledge it is all en-
tirely owing to your judgment and prudence that we
are so.'*

Whether this was said quite so strongly as I relate
it I doubt, it being so very unlike the King's style on
other occasions ; but I relate it literally as Sir Robert /
Walpole related it to me.

3«

382 LOKD HKRVEY'S MEMOIHS. Chap. XVI,

-\

CHAPTER XVI.

Increased Favour of Lord Hervey — Addresses a Political Letter to the
Queen — Mission of M. Wasner — Extraordinary History and Proceed-
ings of Strickland, Bishop of Namur — Lord Hervey's Conference with
Sir Robert Walpole — Wdpole's Management of the King and Queen —
Apology for Egotism—Sir R. Walpole's System of Goyemment

Lord Hervby was this summer in greater favour with
the Queen, and consequently with the King, than ever ;
they told him everything, and talked of everything
before him. The Queen sent for him every morning
as soon as the King went from her, and kept him,
while she breakfasted, till the King returned, which
was generally an hour and a half at least By her
interest, too, she got the King to add a thousand
pounds a-year to his salary, which was a new subject
for complaint to the Prince. She gave him a hunter ;
and on hunting-days he never stirred from her chaise.
She called him always her " child, her pupil, and her
charge ;" used to tell him perpetually that his being so
impertinent and daring to contradict her so conti-
nually, was owing to his knowing she could not live
without him ; and often said, " It is well I am so old,
or I should be talked of for this creature.'* ^

Lord Hervey made prodigious court to her, and
really loved and admired her.* He gave up his sole

I The Queen was fourteen years older than Lord Henrey.
' It seems that he reaUif did. There are priyate letters of his, long after
her death, that prove the sincerity of his affi^stion and admuvtion.

1784. LORD HERYBrS LETTBB TO THE QUEEN. 383

time to her disposal ; and always told her he devoted
it in winter to her business,* and in summer to her
amusement. But, in the great debate at present on
the affairs of Europe, and the part this country ought
to act with regard to peace and war, Lord Hervey
differed with her Majesty in opinion toto ccbIo ; and, in
speaking that opinion to her too freely, often met with
very short and very rough answers. One hunting-day,
particularly, he found the Queen, after a long dispute on
this subject by the side of her chaise, so much dissatis-
fied with his persisting to combat her opinion, that as
soon as he came home he wrote the following paper,
and gave it her at night as she rose from play, after
having previously insisted on her promising not to
show it to anybody whatever : —

" Madam,

" I CANNOT help beginning this paper with complaining
that your Majesty forces me to speak on the topic you intro-
duced this morning on purpose to hear my sentiments and
what I can allege in support of them and then are angry
with me for declaring them or urging anything in their justi-
fication : and did I, like most courtiers, manage your favour
more than I consult your interest, I should perhaps, like them,
run as little risk of losing the one, and be as little faithful to
the other, but chime in with everything your Majesty says,
and never let you know the objections that would be made to
any measure you had a mind to take till it was too late to
alter it. But, for following a contrary conduct and telling
your Majesty what is and will be said to combat your inclina-
tion in this point, your Majesty treats me as you would one of
the most determined Jacobites in the Opposition, who was only
saying those things to thwart your will and to distress your
affairs in Parliament. That which hurts me most upon this
occasion is, that when I feel I wish nothing so much as to pro-

s Meaning In Parliament.

384 LORD HERVEY'S BiEMOIBS. Chjlp. XVI.

mote your Majesty's pleasure, and to contribute all in my
small power to the security and prosperity of your Government,
I am always answered as if I was arguing against both, and as
if I was pleading for the interest of England in opposition to
your Majesty's ; when in reality I use the terms of your interest
and the interest of England indifferently, and as synonymous,
and look upon them, not only in this question but in all others,
as insuperably blended and united.

" If your Majesty was never to be told what would be urged
in objection to any measure you had a mind to take, how could
you be provided with answers to such objections ? —and if those
objections are of real weight, do those serve you best who,
to avoid your displeasure, suffer them to be made by your
enemies, too late for you to profit by them, or those who venture
to incur your displeasure by representing them whilst it is yet
in your power to avoid being exposed to them ? Would your
Majesty choose to hear an objection to a measure you have
taken from the lips of those who wish ill to your Government,
when it must come as a reproach ; or from the mouth of those
who wish well to all your measures, and when that objection
may come time enough to be a warning ? In my situation it
is impossible for me to have any interest separate from that of
your Majesty and your family ; and, besides being the weakest
of mankind if I thought I had, I must be also the most un-
grateful, considering all the distinctions you honour me with,
and the obligations you are daily heaping upon me, if my duty
to your Majesty was not always the first consideration in my
thoughts.

^' This is a very long preface to the business I proposed to
treat of in this paper, but your Majesty will, I hope, have
some indulgence to my gratifying the earnest desire I feel to
set my real motives for all I ever say on this subject in a true
light ; and whatever you find in this paper whidi you dislike
or disapprove, I beg your Majesty would impute to the error
of my judgment, not my want of affection, and correct the im-
perfections of the one without punishing me as you would do,
and as I should deserve, if there were any deficiency in the
other. I know the whole plan of my conduct since your Ma-
jesty has allowed me the honour of being near you has been to

1734. LORD HERVEY'S LETTER TO THE QUEEN. 385

please and serve you ; and I must have very ill luck if that
penetration, which makes you know so well the characters of all
about you, permits you so far to mistake mine as to doubt one
moment of this truth. But to come at last to the political
point on which I have the misfortune to difier from your
Majesty, I own my great and short maxim with regard to
peace and war for this country is, that we can never be gainers
at the end of a war ; and that we are always, whilst it lasts,
both actual losers by the expense of it and negative losers by
the suspense of our trade ; which is so much the vital breath
of this nation that the one cannot subsist whenever the other is
long stopped. The best exit, therefore, England can ever
hope to make at the end of war is to conclude it in as good a
situation as she began it. But, notwithstanding this general
rule, I do not say it is such a one as is never to be departed
from ; the question therefore at present is whether this is one
of those occasions in which this rule ou^t to operate or no ?
Your Majesty says it ought not ; and the reason you give for
it is ^ the bidance of power in Europe, which England ought
always to keep, because sooner or later England must feel the
ill effects of that balance being broken.'

^' In answer to this, I cannot help saying, that it was often,
and sometimes I think not quite unjustly, objected to the con-
duct of some ministers in the late reign, that we were generally
so much in haste to be meddling with every little dispute upon
the Continent, that we frequently^ instead of holding the balance
of Europe, were jumping ourselves into the scale, and becom-
ing parties where we ought only to have been umpires.

^^ As to the present dispute, I have often told your Majesty,
and have often been reproved for it without being yet con-
vinced^ that I cannot see it is of any great importance to Eng-
land in particular, or to the balance of Europe in general,
whether Italy be in the hands of the Emperor or not If the
dispute lay merely between the Houses of Austria and
Bourbon, Naples and Sicily being taken from the Emperor
and given to Don Carlos would certainly make a considerable
variation in the balance of grandeur in those two families ; but
as it is the power of France and the power of the Emperor
which it b our business to preponderate, so I own I look upon

VOL. I. 2 c

386 LORD HERYET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XYL

this change of the dominion of Italy as very immaterial — ^in
the first place, as it is no acquisition to France ; and, in the
next, as I think it yery disputable whether it be any loss to
the Emperor. The possession of Italy enabled the Emperor
to enrich a Viceroy of Naples and a Goyemor of Milan, but he
got little or nothing by it himself: and the occurrences of this
year have shown that the money he raised on these countries
was not sufficient to pay for their defence and defray the charge
of keeping forces enough on foot to maintidn the possession of
them. Would it then be advisable, if this be the case, to
engage this nation in a war (the bent of the people and the im-
mediate interests of the nation being against it) only to regain
Italy for the Emperor, and merely to satisfy the pride of a man
who has made that quality so often troublesome to your king-
doms. Madam, and to your bmi\y ?

^^ I grant there is a national hatred among the people of
England to France ; but personal hatreds are always stronger
than national enmities, and it is impossible to imagine any
foreign prince can be more universally hated in this country
than the Emperor is at present His behaviour with regard to
the Qstend Company, and in the first Treaty of Vienna, and
indeed the whole series of his conduct towards England since
the last war to this hour, has been the occaaon of implanting
these seeds of dislike, and of their taking such deep root

^' The people of England think he has infinite obligations to
them, and they infinite disobligations to him ; they talk of him
in every cofieehouse as the proudest, the weakest, and most
ungrateful of mankind ; and, with the soars of the last war stall
marked upon us in a debt of fifty millions, it would, in my j

opinion, be very difficult, if not impossible, to persuade this I

nation to open new wounds that should leave the marks of fifty
millions more, only to pleasure a prince on whom they would |

be glad, if they could do it without hurtmg themselves, to in- I

flict any mortification, or to bring any disgrace.

*' I will now suppose, for argument's sake, that it is material
for the balance of Europe that Italy should be possessed by
the Emperor ; and were it so, could England engage in a war
to regain Italy for the Emperor without Holland? — No.
Why ? — ^Because, in the first place, it would in all probability

1734. LORD HERYEY'S LETTER. 387

be ineflEectual ; and, in the next, because it must indisputably
throw the trade of all Europe into the hands of Holland, if
Holland remained neuter. Can you persuade Holland into the
war ? — No. Your Majesty says, by Horace*8 letters of late,
you think yes. But is not Horace sanguine in his reports ? and
will not one of the strongest reasons which induce your Majesty
to wish Holland engaged in a war be one of the strongest in
the breast of those who now govern Holland to keep out of
it ? I mean (to speak very plain) the obligation you think
Holland would be under, in case of war, to make a stadtholder.
We tell the Dutch ministers, that, if we and they put no
stop to the progress of the arms of France, and do not prevent
the too great reduction of the Emperor's strex^;th, Holland and
England will only have the poor comfort of being last ruined.
But people in power fear no ruin like the loss of their power ;
and, consequently, the Dutch ministers will never come into
any measure by which they apprehend they must begin with
giving up what they would last part with.

^^ If England and Holland do not come into a war, what
will be the consequence ? France is weary of a war by which
she gets nothing but the honour of conquering for others;
Spain will be glad, by a peace, to secure what they have got
by the war ; and the Emperor to regain to a daughter what he
himself has lost How will that be done ? — ^By the marriage
of an archduchess to Don Carlos. Your Majesty and the
King I know are both averse to giving a prince 6f the House
of Bourbon any chance to sit on the Imperial throne. But if
you will not or cannot assist the Emperor to regain what he
has lost by war, how can you object to bis doing the best he
can for himself by peace ? — and what is it that gives your
Majesty such a reluctance to seeing a prince of that House
Emperor ? Your Majesty cannot imagine that when he is Em-
peror the ties of blood will ever hold princes together whom
views of mterest separate. The Emperor for the time being
and the King of France, though they were brothers, could
never be friends ; mutual jealousies and national interests would
get the better of all consanguinity or former personal friend-
ships. It never was, nor ever will be otherwise : and, if I
may take the liberty to ^ve an example in your own family,

2c2

LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVL

Madam, I would be glad to ask whether your Majesty would
not laugh at anybody that apprehended any bad consequences
from the too close union of the King of England and his cousin-
german and brother the King of Prussia.

*' This way of reasoning, I own. Madam, would prevent my
being afraid of aggrandizing the House of Bourbon by a mar-
riage of an archduchess with Don Carlos, even if the Emperor,
to preserve the indivisibility of his hereditary Austrian domi-
nions, should desire to give him his eldest daughter ; and I am
very sure there is nothing I should apprehend so much as
brin^g this country into the calamities of war without the
utmost necessity; as putting your Majesty's Government under
the extreme difficulty of finding money to support it — as ex-
posing you to the unpopularity of declaring war — ^and raising
such clamour and discontent in this country, as, joined to the
resentment of foreign powers, might bring your own crown at
last into dispute, and your present security into danger.

^^ I shall say, Madam, but one thing more on this subject,
which is, that, though your Majesty's friends may be divided in
their opinion with regard to your entering into this war, your
foes are united in theirs ; since I do not believe there is one
enemy in this country to your Majesty's person and Govern-
ment, one man whom disappointment or disobligation has
estranged to your interest, or one whom principle or hope of
reward has attached to the interest of the Pretender to your
crown, who does not secretly wish this measure concluded, and
is only silent on the subject at present for fear of diverting
your Majesty from a step by which they hope to inflame the
minds of your subjects, alienate their affections, and perhaps
stir them to sedition.

^' These are the crude, indigested notions of a very zealous
and faithful servant, which I have drawn into so great a length
that I will not add to that transgression by making any other
excuse for them than saying they are the result of a mind con-
stantly active for your Majesty's service, and the overflowings
of a heart warm with duty, gratitude, and affection.''

The inaccuracy with which this paper is drawn, and
the little method observed in laying the substance of it

1734. WASNER'S MISSION. 389

together, sufficiently show how hastily it was written ;
but I chose rather to give it incorrect and genuine, than
better dressed and not original. And though the po-
litical tenets of it were so repugnant to the opinion of
the Queen, yet the dutifiil and affectionate terms in
which those tenets were delivered operated so strongly,
that she was more taken by the one than irritated by the
other ; and, after the receipt of this letter, behaved to
Lord Hervey rather with added than diminished favour.

There is one thing which I cannot help remarking
here, very different from the common style of memoir-
writers, and that is, the difficulty and sometimes the
impossibility of coming at truth, even for those who
have, to all appearance, the best information. For
example, in the paper Lord Hervey gave the Queen,
he takes notice of her having told him that Horace
Walpole's letters gave information of the Dutch not
being now so averse to taking part in the war as they
had been; and when Lord Hervey told Sir Bobert
Walpole that he wondered Horace would write in that
style, since it must make Sir Bobert's part in keeping
out of the war more difficult. Sir Bobert Walpole
utterly denied it, and said, the style of Horace's late
despatches was so very different from what the Queen
had reported them, that the King but the day before
had told Sir Bobert Walpole that his brother talked
more like the Pensionary of Holland * than the Minis-
ter of England*

About this time one Wasner,^ a sensible man, in

« The Pensionary Slingelandt was opposed to our policy, as he was to
the House of Orange.

^ So both Lord Hervey and Horace Walpole spell the name ; in the
despatches in Coxe^ it is Wdasenaar.

390 LORD HERVErS MEMOIRS. Chap, XVI.

great favour with the Emperor, was sent here, without
any character, to sound the King and Queen, and to
confer with Sir Bobert Walpole ; in short, to pick up
what intelligence he could, and report at Vienna the
situation in which he found this country, as well as die
disposition he discovered in the Prince, the Minister,
or the people, with regard to the part England should
act in the present circumstances of Europe.

The King and Queen declined seeing him in private
for fear of giving umbrage to Kinski, by the discredit it
would bring upon him to have it thought the affitirs of
the Emperor here were to be transacted by other hands;
they tierefbre corresponded with him privately by
messages, carried backward and forward by Mr. Poyntz^
which gave great disquiet to the Duke of Newcastle,
who saw perpetual whispers and secrets going on be-
tween the King and Poyntz, and knew not the subject
of them. Of this disquiet the Queen (one day whilst
the King was speaking to Poyntz in a comer of the
drawing-room) took notice to Sir Itobert Walpole, and
said, smiling, ^^ I beg you see the uneasiness of the
Duke of Newcastle at that whispering ; if Lord Har-
rington was alarmed I should not wonder/' The latter
part of what she said alarmed, I think, Sir Bobert
Walpole, who did not like a growing interest of this
kind, which seemed to be nourished merely from its
own root

Poyntz, as I have said before, differed in opinion,
or at least in discourse, from Sir Bobert Walpole on
the measure of war ; however, he reported &irly to
the King and Queen that Wasner owned he was so
pleased with what Sir Bobert Walpole had said to him

1734. BISHOP OF NAMUR. 391

on this subject, and so much convinced by Sir Bobert's
reasoning that accommodation was the interest of the
Emperor, that he wished his master listened to such
counsellors, and could hear Sir Bobert Walpole talk on
this subject only one hour at Vienna.

Wasner (as he told Foyntz) transmitted to the
Emperor everything he had heard Sir Bobert Walpole
say.

But the Queen, tenacious of her own opinion and
impatient to have her will fulfilled, was not at ail
satisfied with the result of this conference between
Wasner and Sir Bobert She proposed Wasner
should have persuaded Sir Bobert into her measures,
and not that Sir Bobert should have convinced Was-
ner of the propriety of his own* When Sir Bobert
told me this, and complained of the Queen's con-
duct, he farther added, that her Majesty, fijiding
Wasner more tractable than Einski, had sent him
away, which he said was unfair and below her. But
I think in this he did not do the Queen justice ; for
Wasner (as I told Sir Bobert) did, at his first
coming h^re, declare his stay was to be short, and
that he was to go, as he now did, firom hence to
Portugal, to settle some business the Emperor had at
that Court.

Soon after Wasner*s departure a new engine was
played: the Bishop of Namur, under the name of
Mr. Modey, arrived in England from Vienna,* upon the
same errand that Wasner came, but undertaken and

* See an accoant, agreeing subatantiallj with Lord Hexrey's, of this
strange man and his mission, in the Walpole Paper$, and particularlj in
Mr. Walpole's letter to his brother, 22nd October, 1734. (GtKre, iii. 184.)

392 LORD HBRVEY'S MBMOIRS. Chap. XVI.

executed in a very different manner — Wasner having
been chosen by the Emperor as a proper man for such
a commission, and the other having offered himself
and solicited an employment to which he was altogether
unequal. The real name of the Bishop of Namur was
Strickland : he was an Englishman by birth, but bom
of Eoman Catholic parents and educated in that
religion abroad. Nobody could say he was a fool
without being unacquainted with him or so well ac-
quainted with his profligate manners as to be prejudiced
against his understanding ; but he had only those sort
of parts that put people on many projects, and make
them apter to despise difficulties than to get over
them.

Notwithstanding his profession, and the great rise he
made in it, he had passed his whole life in gluttony,
drunkenness, and the most infamous debauchery. Nor
was his dissolute conduct confined to one country ; for,
as he had been in most Courts of Europe, so in every
one of them he had left the fame of his abandoned
profligacy.

In the reign of the late King he came into England,
and by the credit he then had amongst the Roman
Catholics here, under the pretence of serving them,
was of use to the Government by betraying all their
counsels : in return for which honest services he got to
be nominated by the late King of Poland, at the inter-
cession of the late King of England, for a Cardinal's
hat ; which nomination he sold to the Emperor for one

The Bishop, who died and was buried at Namur in 1743, was the youngest
son of Thomas Strickland, who had been Privy Purse to Charles II., and
followed James II. into Franco.

1734. BISHOP OP NAMUR. 393

of his favourites, for a sum of money and the presenta-
tion to the Bishopric of Namur.

He obtained leave of the Emperor at this time to go
into England, by telling his Imperial Majesty that the
reason why England had not yet engaged in his quarrel
was, that the ignorance and stupidity of Kinski made
him incapable of managing this great negotiation ; and,
in the next place, that Kinski was so disagreeable to
the English Court, that his desiring anything was suf-
ficient alone to make the English Ministers averse to it
To these arguments he added that of his own interest
at the Court of England being so good, that with the
assistance of his dexterity, which he placed in no mean
rank, there were few things he was not capable of bring-
ing about

The reward he proposed for his services, if he suc-
ceeded, was a new nomination to a Cardinal's hat, and
with these views he came to England, thinking, after
he came hither, to impose upon our Ministers by brag-
ging of his interest at Vienna, as he had imposed upon
the Emperor by boasting of his interest here, in order
to be sent hither.

That one single man could hope to play these two
Courts in this manner upon one another, at a time that
he knew, too, he was obnoxious to the ministers of both,
may sound very extraordinary, but it was certainly
fact; and his embassy met with the fete that anybody
but himself might have expected, and, consequently,
nobody but such a coxcomical adventurer in politics
would have tempted.

At his first coming over he had an audience of the
King that lasted two hours, in which he failed not to

394 LORD HKBVBTS MEMOIBS. Chap. XVI.

set forth, in the most advantageous descriptions, the
great favour in which he stood with the Emperor, and
the influence he had at present in all the counsels of
Vienna; intimating, too, that at his return from diis
embassy he should immediately be declared First
Minister. He told the King at the same time that his
affection to his native country, and his gratitude to his
Majesty's father and family, would always make him
look on the interests of England and his Majesty as
what he ought to consider equal to that even of his
master ; and that he hoped for these reasons the King
and the Queen, in answer to the letters he had brought
from the Emperor and the Empress, would have the
goodness to speak of him as a man not disagreeable to
this Court.

The King, as his custom always was upon such occa-
sions, took care to hamper himself by no particular pro-
mises, but in general said many civil things to the Bishop,
talked at large on the present situation of Europe, and
dismissed him from this audience better satisfied with

m

the situation of his affiiirs than he ever was after.

Sir Kobert Walpole, having got the better of Kinski
and Wasner, was not for encouraging the growth of
these hydras' heads, and therefore resolved to give
no assistance, or even countenance, to the Bishop of
Namur ; and the Bishop, at every conference he had
with Sir Bobert, finding him not to be shaken in his
resolutions against war, perceived he should certainly
fail in the promise he had made the Emperor of brings
ing England into it He therefore tried another way,
and by caballing underhand with his former friend
Mr. Fulteney, and others in the Opposition, endeavoured

1734 BISHOP OF NAJCUB FAILS. 395

to distress the Minister as much as the Minister had
distressed hinu

Sir Bobert Walpole, having do^ed and traced him
to every place he had frequented from his first coming
to England, soon found what he drove at, and told the
King and Queen he suspected some double game
playing by the Emperor, and that the Bishop had
been sent here to foment discontents, and form intrigues
to disturb the Government, in case he found the Court
determined not to enter as rashly into his quarrel as he
wished they should.

He had likewise dogged the Bishop (though now
near three-score) several times to a little scrub house of
no good reputation, where he used to go late at night
on foot, and wrapped up in a red rug riding-coat.
This he told also to the King and Queen, knowing how
useful it is to throw ridicule on those whom one wishes
to depreciate, and how serviceable it is in such cases
to add contempt to dislike.

At last Sir Robert Walpole got leave to have letters
written to Vienna to acquaint the Emperor with the
Bishop's clandestine correspondence with the enemies
of the Government ; to complain of it ; and desire, if the
Emperor did not mean to countenance such practices,
and had given him no authority for taking these steps,
that he might be recalled : which he was, by very ex-
plicit and peremptory orders from the Emperor, im-
mediately after the receipt of these letters.

Kinski, who had been jealous of the Bishop of
Namur from his first arrival here, and hated him
heartily, was so pleased with Sir Bobert Walpole for
not protecting him and getting him recalled, that this

LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XTI.

incident reconciled them entirely ; Kinski, as ignorant
people are apt to do, looking on the contingent benefit
he drew firom Sir Robert Walpole's policy as a favour
he received from his friendship.

In this manner finished the embassy of the Bishop
of Namur, whose indigested, wild schemes might have
been just pardonable errors in a young, hot-headed,
enterprising fellow of five-and-twenty, but in a hoary
, fool of five-and-fifly were altogether inexcusable. A
man like him, practised in Courts, and long acquainted
with the mysteries of state, as well as of the church,
/ ought to have known that the proficients in the one as

well as the other, how easy soever they may find it to
deceive their inferiors, never deceive one another.

The only sign of cleverness the Bishop of Namur
showed in the whole course of this transaction was in
the excuse he made to the Emperor for holding any
correspondence with those who were in opposition to
the Court The reason he gave for it was that he
found the King and Queen inclined to the war, but
overruled by Sir Bobert Walpole, whom no ailments
or persuasions could shake ; if therefore he could have
brokd^ Sir Bobert Walpole's power, he said, the fiiture
Ministers, to whom he had promised the support of the
Court of Vienna, he had obliged in return to promise
their support to the Emperor in the war. But this
availed him little : the Emperor wanted succours, and
the Bishop a cardinal's hat ; and the Bishop, being un-
able to procure for the Emperor what he desired, was
unable to obtain from him what he himself desired*

All this summer the Queen used to see Sir Bobert
Walpole every Monday evening regularly, and at other

1734. WALPOLB'S JCANAGEMENT. 397

times casually ; but at every conference she had with
him (as he told me), though she always said he had
convinced her, and that she would give in to the accom-
modation, yet day after day, for three weeks together,
she made him put off the setting on foot those measures
which ought to have been taken in consequence of that
conviction. And what is very surprising, yet what I
know to be true, the arguments of Sir Bobert Walpole,
conveyed through the Queen to the King, so wrought
upon him, that they quite changed the colour of his
Majesty's sentiments, though they did not tinge the
channel through which they flowed. When Lord
Hervey told Sir Bobert he had made this observation,
Sir Bobert said it was true, and agreed with him how
extraordinary it was that she should be either able or
willing to repeat what he said with energy and force
sufficient to convince another without being convinced
herself. However, said Sir Bobert Walpole, " I shall
carry my point at last ; but you, my Lord, are enough
acquainted with this Court to know that nothing can be
done in it but by degrees ; should I tell either the King
or the Queen what I propose to bring them to six
months hence, I could never succeed. Step by step I
can carry them perhaps the road I wish ; but if I ever
show them at a distance to what end that road leads,
they stop short, and all my designs are always defeated.
For example, if we cannot make peace, and yet I can
keep this nation out of the war a year longer, I know
it is impossible but England must give law to all
Europe : yet this I dare not say, since even this consi-
deration would not keep them quiet if they thought
peace could not be obtained ; and for that reason I graft

398 LOBB HEBYKTS HEM0IB8. Chap. XYL

as yet all my argumentB on the supposition that peace
will be effected. I told the Queen this morning^ * Ma-
dam, there are fifty thousand men slain this year in
Europe, and not one Englishman; and besides the satis-
faction it is to one's good nature to make this reflection,
considering they owe their safety and their lives to those
under whose care and protection they are, sure, in point
of policy, too, it is no immaterial circumstance to be able
to say, that, whilst all the rest of Europe has paid their
share to this diminution of their common strength, Eng-
land remains in its full and unimpaired vigoiur. Tour
Majesty accuses me always (if I may call it an accusa-
tion) of partiality to England, and considering nothing
else; but whatever motives of partiality sway me, ought
they not naturally with double weight to bias you, who
have so much more at stake ?* "

Lord Hervey asked him if these things made no im-
pression upon her ? He said, ^' Yes, for a time ; but
the partiality she has to her own opinions, or to the gra-
tification of her own will, sometimes even against her
opinion, turns her again; and if that bias or her inclina-
tion can make her own opinion bend, you cannot won-
der, my Lord, if it proves too strong sometimes for
mine.*'

Lord Hervey said, " For your own sake. Sir, I wish
the people of England could know the obligations diey
have to you, and how often you risk the favour that
supports you, to employ it, whilst you are possessed of
it, for their welfare and advantage ; but I own to you,
considering the disaffection there is already in the king-
dom to those we serve, and how much it is the interest
of us all to keep that disaffection firom spreading; I had

1734. APOLOGY FOR EGOTISM.

rather, as well as I love you, that you should lose the
popularity of being known so to fight the people's cause
than have it known at the same time against whom you
are obliged to combat For if we who wish them well,
and whose interest and inclination it is to support them,
cannot help feeling something within us that recoils on
these occasions, what effect must the same reflections
have on the minds of those who are as much prejudiced
against them as we are prepossessed for them; and
would be as glad of a handle to abuse their conduct and
blacken their characters as we should be of the means to
defend the one or brighten the other !"

I cannot help here making a short digression by way
of apology for the frequent use I find myself obliged to
make of my own name, notwithstanding all the resolu-
tions I made against it when I undertook this work, the
promises with which I set forth to avoid it, and the en-
deavours which in the progress of it I have often made \ ii^
use of to comply with so decent and proper a rule laid
down to myself. In reading the works of other memoir^
writers, I own I have frequently been shocked with the
same behaviour; and knowing, bycorresponding accounts
of the times they treated of, how much an inferior figure
they made in the picture when drawn by other hands
than when painted by their own, I have imputed to
their vanity what from experience I now find may
have been owing to necessity ; for, as authors in these
cases must chiefly relate such transactions as ihey
themselves have had some little concern in, and for the
satisfiEU^tion of their readers, even in fisicts where they
were not concerned, are forced to introduce their own
name to clear up the manner in which those facts

400 LORD HERYErS MEMOIRS. Cbaf. XYI.

came to be known to them ; so it is impossible but the
authors of such writings, let them be ever so inconsi-
derable, must, in transmitting things to posterity, men-
tion themselves much oftener than at first may seem
necessary to the readers ; and, consequently, from rea-
sons very different from those to which the readers
may ascribe them, and from which, considering the
universal propensity mankind have to talk of them-
selves, it may be very natural for posterity to think
such manner of writing proceeds.

And since I am entered into apolc^ies for the defects
of this work, I cannot omit making one for the loose, un-
methodized, and often incoherent manner, in which it
is put together. This is owing to the little leisure I have
for writing or correcting ; the incapacity, consequently,
I am under of recopying my first draughts ; and my
setting down day by day the things herein contained,
just as they occur and whilst they are fresh in my me-
mory. But now my excuse is made, I must add, too,
in favour of this work, that by these means, though the
style may be less pure, the transitions less natural, and
the facts less artfiilly connected, yet that for which such
sort of writings ought to be most valued, which is
fidelity in the recital, will certainly be better preserved
than it could be in any other way of compiling and
transmitting them. By what I have said I find I have
done as people generally do when they voluntarily
confess any fault in themselves, which is making it a
prelude to bragging of some merit which they are more
proud of than they are ashamed of the other ; hoping
at the same time that under the plausible show of
ingenuity in the one they may bias their commenta-

1734. WALPOLE'S SYSTEM. 401

tors to have a better opinion of their truth in the
other.

If I was much concerned for the pleasure people will
take in reading these papers when pleasure and pain
will be sensations no longer known to me, I should
lament, too, the little importance of the occurrences
and incidents belonging to the times in which I write
and of which I treat Few readers give great attention"^
but to great events, and such were not the growth of ^
this country in the age I am describing; a minister
ruled it who was more anxious to keep his power than
to raise his fame, and wisely lived to his present in-
terest, and not to the embellishment of a page in future
story : he knew that palliatives, delays, and gentle me-
thods were the ways to keep power, though active and
enterprising steps may sometimes be the means to gain
it, and, in imminent dangers, violent remedies neces-
sary to restore it But this was not his case — " CaUistus
prions quoque regice peritus, et potentiam cautis quam
CLcrioribus consiliis tutius haberi :" — "Callistus, with the
experience of the former Court, thought that power
was more safely maintained by cautious than by more
violent counsels." — {Tadtus,) He knew, whatever hap
pened, he could be nothing greater than what he
was; and, in order to remain in that situation, his
great maxim in policy was to keep everything else as
undisturbed as he could, to bear with some abuses
rather than risk reformations, and submit to old incon-
veniences rather than encourage innovations. From
these maxims, which in my opinion he sometimes car-
ried too far, he would never lend his assistance nor
give the least encouragement to any emendation either

VOL. I. 2d

402 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVI.

of the law or the church, though the expenses and
hardships of the first, and the tyranny and injustice of
the last in the ecclesiastical courts, were got to an excess
wholly unjustifiable and almost insupportable. From
this way of reasoning he opposed the inquiry into the
South Sea affair, the bill to vacate the infamous sale
of Lord Derwentwater's estate, the examination of the
House of Commons into the afiairs of the charitable
corporations and the abuses in the gaols, besides many
other crying instances of flagrant injustice and oppres-
sion, which he could not defend, and yet declined to
correct by an extraordinary method, though, in the
ordinary course of justice, he and all the world knew it
was impossible to come at the ofienders, put any stop
to the oflences, or give any redress to the injured. One
might with great truth say of Sir Robert Walpole what
Tacitus does of Tiberius, — " Nihil ceqa^ Tiberium
anxium habebat quhm ne composka turbareniur ;** — "Ti-
berius's greatest anxiety was, that what was settled should
not be disturbed."' This apprehension, long experience
and thorough knowledge of this country and this Go-
vernment had taught him ; and in this way of thinking,
the unsuccessful deviation he had made from it in the
Excise scheme had now more than ever confirmed
him. But, how right soever this policy might be in
general, it exposed him to very severe censures in par-
ticular cases ; his enemies often asserting, too plausibly,
that there was not a knave in the kingdom who
might not reckon upon his protection and be sure of

7 Horace Walpole «ay8, ''Sir Robert's grand maxim of government was
Quieta ne mavetesL maxim quite opposite to those of our dajs," — Wal-
poliamy § 107.

1734. COURT HISTORIES. 403

escaping if parliamentary inquiry was necessary to
convict him.

To whom lien can a history of such times be agree-
able or entertaining, unless it be to such as look into
courts and courtiers, princes and ministers, with such
curious eyes as virtuosos in microscopes examine
flies and emmets, and are pleased with the dissected
minute parts of animals, which in the gross herd they
either do not regard or observe only with indifference
and contempt?

^.Ay

2d2

404 LORD HERYSrS MEKOIRS. Chaf. XVU.

CHAPTER XVII.

Reception of the Prince and Princess of Orange in Holland — Honoe
Wa1pole*8 unsuccessful Negotiations — Details and tracasseries about the
Princess of Orange's lying-in — She sets out for Harwich — Suddenly
returns — Illness of the Queen — Confidential Communication of Sir
Robert to her Majesty — Alarm lest the King should have overheard it.

But to return to my narrative of the transactions of
this summer. Horace Walpole, who had been sent to
prepare the way of the Princess Eoyal on her first
going to Holland, soon after her arrival there returned
to England, ashamed of all his disappointments, and
at the same time boasting of his success. When he
braced to Lord Hervey how well he had managed
matters, and assured him that the Dutch would do
nothing without us. Lord Hervey, who had no mind to
let Horace believe him his dupe, said, " We knew that
before you went ; but will they do anything with us ? "
To which Horace, under the ministerial refuge of
aflfecting to know more than he would tell, only replied,
" That you mil see.'*

How the Princess Eoyal was received in Holland,
or what she did there, is little worthy of any particu-
larising account. She felt, I suppose, as unabated
pride generally feels in diminished grandeur ; and as
she did not care to let down that pride to cajole the
people of the country, nor the people of the country care
to do anything to gratify it, she neither pleased there nor
was pleased. She passed a solitary life, with music and

1734. PRINCB AND PRINCESS OF ORANGE. 405

books, and found no consolation for having quitted
England but the prospect of soon returning thither.

There was something very remarkable passed in
Holland previous to her arrival there, which I forgot
before to relate. The governing people in Holland
were so apprehensive of an insurrection of the populace
on the arrival of the Prince and Princess of Orange at the
Hague, that they determined to frame some excuse for
taking measures to prevent any bustle, and yet to im*
pute those measures to some other cause than the true
one, which they did not care to own. The reason given
was this : they pretended the common people were so
possessed with fear upon account of an ancient prophecy
foretelling that this year, in the month of May, all the
Protestants would be massacred by the Papists, that, in
order to prevent disorders consequent to the appre-
hensions the people were in of the completion of this
prophecy, some measures to preserve the peace ought
to be taken ; whereupon they ordered a strong guard to
patrole night and day about the town, who upon the
least tumult were to seize every man concerned in it
But, notwithstanding these precautions, the Prince of
Orange's coach, when he came to the Hague, was sur-
rounded by a mob of several hundred people; and
whilst those at a distance only hallooed out his name
with common acclamations and huzzas, some of those
who hung at his coach-doors told him they wished for
nothing so much as to see him Stadtholder, and asked
him if they should go and pull down or fire the houses
of all those who opposed him. The Prince of Orange,
knowing the strength of these his partisans not to be
equal to their zeal, nor their power to serve him ade-

406 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVU.

quate to their good wishes, was forced to reprove them
for what he secretly thanked them, and wisely took the
turn of seeming solicitous to correct and keep down
that spirit which, if it had been more general or less
impotent, he would have doubled his endeavours to
stimulate and inflame.

Soon after this (as I have before said) the Prince of
Orange went to the Rhine, and the Princess Royal
returned to England. As soon as she arrived in Eng-
land she declared herself with child, which she said she
had not done in Holland lest it should have been made
a pretence for keeping her there.

Horace Walpole, soon after she came over, was
again sent this summer to Holland, and now in the
character of ambassador. But Mr. Finch,^ who was at
this same time at the Hague in the character of envoy,
was so disobliged at this coadjutor being sent thither,
that he desired to be recalled, and quitted the King's
service ; thinking his capacity (which was a very mean
one) equal to the most delicate transactions of state,
and not comprehending, though it had been as good as
he thought it, that yet Sir Robert Walpole, considering
the present circumstances of things, might choose
rather to confide in his own brother in an affiiir where
the utmost secrecy was required than in a brother to
my Lord Winchelsea, and one who was brought into
the world by Lord Carteret, owed everything to his
favour, and still lived with him in the strictest firiend-
ship.

Horace was every way unsuccessiul in this embassy.

1 The Right Honourable William Finch, brother to the seventh and
(kther to the eighth Earl of Winchelaea, long minister at the Hague.

1734. HORACE WALPOLB'S NEGOTIATIONS. 407

In the first place he went over with a new scheme to
bring the Dutch into the war: this miscarried. Then
he made a strange, tedious, complioated, injudicious
plan of accommodation: that was disapproved; and,
after being discussed here and considered at Paris, was
laid aside, to the great satisfaction of our King, who
told Sir Robert Walpole, " I am glad there is an end
of Horace's stufl^ which I never thoroughly understood,
but what I did understand of it I disliked/* Horace
then tried his skill upon a more private a&ir, and
wrote to the Princess Royal to tell her all the Dutch
who wished well to her and her husband were very
uneasy at her staying in England, for fear (though
they were told the contrary) that she should intend
to lie-in here. He gave it as his humble opinion,
too, that the Prince of Orange would take it better
if she came over and waited his return from the
camp in Holland, than if she stayed in England till
he sent for her. And at the end of this well-judged
epistle he desired her Royal Highness to make her
own use of this hint without showing his letter to the
Queen.*

The Princess Royal, who hated the thoughts of re-

s Lord Hervey's judgment must have been warped by the influence of
the royal ladies when he thus sneered at Mr. Walpole's very judicious
advice ; and that he did not volunteer, but was iQvited by the Princess
herself to give his opinion (which he knew would displease), is shown by
one of his own letters to his brother : —

" Hagw, Oct. 22, 1734.— The Princess Royal now complains to my
wife of me for not writing to her ; I can't tell how to do it, because I don't
know what is offensive and what Is Inofiensive : this I know, what is most
for their interest b not moat to their minds, and I have not ill nature enough
to advise anybody, when they ask my opinion, to act against their interest." —
Cojtef iil. 184. We shall see presently that Lord Hervey, and everybody
else save the Princess, soon came round to Mr. Walpole*! opinion.

408 LORD HERVEY'8 MEMOIRS, Chap. XVIL

turning to Holland, cried the whole morning after
receiving this letter, and, as soon as ever she had read
it, carried it with red eyes and wet cheeks to her
mother. The Queen, who was almost as unwilling to
part with her daughter as she was to go, called Horace
an officious fool, and wrote to him, half in jest and half
in earnest, to bid him mind his politics, not meddle
with what he did not understand, and leave the regula-
tion of her daughter's conduct to her own prudence,
who knew much better what was proper than he could
tell her. She asked him if he thought her daughter
had nothing to do but to be crossing the seas for his
pleasure, and said she was sure his only reason for
giving this fine advice was his being ennuyS in Holland
and wanting the Princess to come and play at whist
with him.

The King tipped Horace the "puppy" once or
twice upon this occasion, and Sir Robert, finding the
stumble his brother had made and not being able
seriously to take his part, joined in the laugh against
him. The imagining that such advice would be wel-
come to the Princess Royal, or that she would conceal
such a letter from the Queen, were two suppositions
extraordinary even for Horace's judgment to proceed
upon. But his itch of meddling and his awkwardness
in touching drew him into eternal difficulties and
scrapes, out of which his brother's power and dexterity
united were oftentimes barely sufficient to extricate
him. Horace hated following directions, though they
were ever so good, and loved giving them, though they
were ever so bad ; but with such perverse obstinacy in
one case, and such unfortunate impotence in the other,

1784. AKRANGEMENTS FOR THE PRINCESS'S LYING-IN. 409

one must wonder at his great rise in the world, though
one cannot at the ridiculous figure he made when so
unbecomingly exalted. For he was of that class of men
to whom court honours and royal favours, instead of
lessening contempt, add to it by making the qualities
that first procure contempt more conspicuous, and
putting them in an eminence that makes ridicule uni-
versal ; half the world laughing at him from knowing
he deserved it, and the other half doing it upon trust,
and because it was the fashion.

Nor would Horace take warning from this disgrace
he met with upon meddling with the Princess BoyaFs
conduct with regard to her going back immediately to
Holland, but would try his skill again upon the same
subject ; and, as people generally do when they try to
mend, only made the rent still wider. That she was to
lie-in in Holland was determined ; but the dispute was
whether at Lewarden or the Hague : the Princess her-
self had a mind to the Hague, for convenience, society,
and assistance ; Horace advised Lewarden ; and the
wise reason he gave for it was, that, as the people of
Friesland were entirely devoted to the Prince of
Orange, and at the Hague there was a strong party
against him, so it would be much more just and reason-
able to please those who were firm in his interest than
those who were divided and but imperfectly so ; where-
as I fear, in policy, whatever gratitude may suggest.
Princes ought, where people are to be gained, to argue
very differently, and bestow their favours rather in bribes
to acquire friends than in rewards to those who are
under an incapacity of acting in any other character.

The Prince of Orange himself, M. Duncan his first

410 LORD HBRVETS MEMOIRS- Cbap. XVIL

Minister, and all his best friends, were united in their
opinions for the Princess's lying-in at the Hague ; and
Duncan went so far as to say he supposed Mr. Walpole
wanted something of Monsieur * * *' (the Prince of
Orange's great enemy) to be done for England, which
he proposed to buy by sacrificing the Prince of Orange's
interest in this point to obtain it

At last, however, it was settled by the King and
Queen, who thought it for the dignity as well as interest
of their daughter, that she should lie-in at the Hague ;
and, notwithstanding Her Boyal Highness's reluctance
to quit England, the time was now come that made it
necessary for her to take that grating resolution. The
Prince of Orange, who had already quitted the Imperial
camp, and was making a short tour in Germany, sent
M. Grovestein (one of the gentlemen of his bed-cham-
ber) to England to let the Princess Boyal know he
should be at the Hague in a fortnight, and ready to re-
ceive her. The tears she shed on this occasion were
carefully hidden from Grovestein, but flowed in great
abundance whenever he was not present

After a consultation of physicians, midwives, and
admirals, about the manner of her voyage, it waa de-
termined she should embark at Harwich, and the yachts
were accordingly sent thither to wait for her.

The Queen was most unaflTectedly concerned to part
with her daughter, and her daughter as unaiTectedly con-
cerned to leave England, and exchange the crowds and
splendour of this Court for the solitude and obscurity of
her own. Lord Hervey was with her in the morning

3 A blank in the original MS. ; probably Slingelandt.

1734. THE PRmCBSS SETS OUT FOR HARWICH, 411

[21^^ OctJ] before she set out, the only man (except her
favourite, Mr. Schutz^) whom she desired to attend her;
and, whilst he led her to her coach, she insisted on his
writing to her constantly, to give her an account how
all those hours passed in which she used to have her
share. She had Handel and his opera so much at
heart, that even in these distressful moments she spoke
as much upon his chapter as any other, and b^ged
Lord Hervey to assist him with the utmost attention.
In an hour after she went Lord Hervey was sent for
as usual to the Queen, who was really ill, but was
thought to say she was so, only from a desire to lay the
disorder occasioned by the departure of the Princess on
some other cause, and was therefore now as little credited
when she said she was sick as she had often been when
she said she was well. Lord Hervey found her and
the Princess Caroline together, drinking chocolate,
drowned in tears, and choked with sighs. Whilst they
were endeavouring to divert their attention by begin-
ning a conversation with Lord Hervey on indifferent
subjects, the gallery door opened, upon which the
Queen said, ^^ Is the King here already ?** and. Lord
Hervey telling her it was the Prince, the Queen, not
mistress of herself, and detesting the exchange of the
son for the daughter, burst out anew into tears, and
cried out, " Oh 1 my Godj this is too muchJ^ How-
ever, she was soon relieved from this irksome company

4 This was, I presume, Augustus, the elder of two sons of Baron Schutz,
8 German who came over with George I. and settled his family in Eng-
land. Augustus had been equerry to George II. when Prince, and be-
came Master of the Robes and Privy Purse to the King, with whom he
was in great personal favour.

412 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIL

by the arrival of the King, who, finding this unusual
and diss^eeable guest in the gallery, broke up the
breakfast, and took the Queen out to walk. Whenever
the Prince was in a room with the King, it put one in
mind of stories one has heard of ghosts that appear to
part of the company and are invisible to the rest: and
in this manner, wherever the Prince stood, though the
King passed him ever so often or ever so near, it al-
ways seemed as if the King thought the place the Prince
filled a void space.

The Princess Royal, who in her way to Harwich was
to lie the first night at Colchester, on her arrival there
found letters from the Prince of Orange to let her know
he could not be at the Hague by some few days so soon
as he intended ; and upon the receipt of these letters she
took the resolution of going back the next day [22nd
Oct.'] to Kensington. The first intelligence the King
and Queen had of her designing to return was seeing
her actually returned, and entering the room where liiey
were, when they thought her at sea : the Queen received
her with a thousand kisses and tears of joy, the King
with smiles and open arms ; a reception she braced of
afterwards to everybody, and one she was more pleased
with, from the doubts and anxiety she had felt on the
road of its not being so favourable.

This step, indeed, was approved by nobody, and
only not censured by the King and Queen. It was
thought not very obliging either to the Prince of Orange
or the people of Holland, nor very prudent with regard
to her own circumstances to double the fatigue of such
a journey ; the wind, too, when she turned back, was
as fair as it could blow ; and what increased the con-

1734. SUDDEN RETURN OF THE PRINCESS. 413

demnation of her conduct was^ that the Prince of Orange,
hearing of the time she was to set forward, travelled
himself night and day to meet her, and was actually
at Helvoetsluys expecting her arrival as soon as it
was possible for her, had she gone on, to have landed
there.

The day [29th Oct.'] before the birthday the Court
removed from Kensington to London ; and the Queen,
who had long been out of order with a cough and a
little lurking fever, notwithstanding she had been twice
blooded, grew every hour worse and worse : however,
the King lugged her the night she came from Kensing-
ton, the first of Farinelli's performances, to the opera,
and made her the next day go through all the tiresome
ceremonies of drawing-rooms and balls, the fatigues of
heats and crowds, and every other disagreeable appur-
tenance to the celebration of a birthday. There was a
strange affectation of an incapacity of being sick that ran
through the whole Boyal Family, which they carried so
far that no one of them was more willing to own any
other of the family ill than to acknowledge themselves
to be so, I have known the King get out of his bed,
choking with a sore throat, and in a high fever, only
to dress and have a levee, and in five minutes undress
and return to his bed till the same ridiculous farce of
health was to be presented the next day at the same
hour. With all his fondness for the Queen, he used to
make her in the like circumstances commit the like
extravagances, but never with more danger and uneasi-
ness than at this time. In the morning drawing-room
she found herself so near swooning that she was forced

414 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Ch\p. XVn.

to send Lord Grantham to the King to beg he would
retire, for that she was unable to stand any longer.
Notwithstanding which, at night he brought her into
still a greater crowd at the ball, and there kept her till
eleven o'clock.

On the birthday, Sir Robert Walpole, who had been
ill of a flying gout for some time, told Lord Hervey he
did not care to go to any of the feasts, and would come
and dine with him, by which means he should be ready
with less trouble to go up to the Queen in the evening^
when he could catch her at leisure.

Sir Robert Walpole used always to go into Norfolk
twice in a year, for ten days in the summer and twenty
in November, and generally set out for his second ex-
pedition the day after the King's birthday : he was to
do so now, and therefore to take his leave this evening
of the Queen. Between six and seven he went up to
her from Lord Hervey's lodgings, and stayed there near
two hours. After inquiring much of the state of her
health, and finding it very indifferent, he entreated her
to take care of herself, and told her, " Madam, your
life is of such consequence to your husband, to your
children, to this country, and indeed to many other
countries, that any neglect of your health is really the
greatest immorality you can be guilty of: when one
says these sort of things in general to princes, I know,
Madam, they must sound like flattery ; but consider
particular circumstances, and your Majesty will quickly
find what I say to be strictly true. Your Majesty knows
that this country is entirely in your hands — ^that the
fondness the King has for you, the opinion he has of

1734. WALPOLE'S CONFERENCE WITH THE QUEEN. 415

your affection, and the regard he has for your judgment,
are the only reins by which it is possible to restrain the
natural violences of his temper, or to guide him through
any part where he is wanted to go. Should any accident
happen to your Majesty, who can tell into what hands
he would fell — who can tell what would become of him,
of your children, and of us all ? Some woman, your Ma-
jesty knows, would govern him ; for the company of
men he cannot bear. Who knows who that woman
would be, or what she would be ? She might be ava-
ricious ; she might be profuse ; she might be ambitious ;
she might, instead of extricating him out of many diffi-
culties (like her predecessor), lead him into many, and
add those of her own indiscretions to his: perhaps,
from interested views for herself and her own children
(if she happened to have any), or from the natural and
almost universal hatred that second marriages bear to all
the consequences of a first, she might blow up the father
against the son ; irritate the son against the father, the
brothers against one another ; and might add to this
the ill treatment and oppression of the sisters, who,
with their youth and bloom worn off, without husbands,
without fortunes, without friends, and without a mother,
might, with all the ^clat of their birth and the grandeur of
their education, end their lives as much objects of pity
as they began them objects of envy. To these divisions
in the palace, the natural consequences would be divi-
sions in the kingdom ; and what the consequences of
those would be, it is much more terrible to think of
than difficult to foresee,*'

The Queen wept extremely whilst Sir Robert was
speaking to her, and then answered in this manner : —

416 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVH.

" Your partiality to me, my good Sir Robert, makes
you see many more advantages in having me, and
apprehend many greater dangers from losing me, than
are indeed the effects of the one, or than would be the
consequences of the other. That the King would marry
again, if I died, I believe is sure, and I have often ad-
vised him so to do ; but his good sense, and his affection
for his family, would put a stop to any such attempts
as you speak of in a second wife, or at least would
prevent their coming to the height you describe ; and
as for his political government, he has now such a love
for you, and so just a value for your services, as well as
such an opinion of your abilities, that, were I removed,
everything would go on just as it does. You have
saved us from many errors, and this very year have
forced us into safety, whether we would or no, against
our opinion and against our inclination. The King
sees this, and I own it ; whilst you have fixed your-
self as strongly in favour by an obstinate and wise con-
tradiction to your Prince, as ever any other minister
did by the blindest and most servile compliance."
Sir Robert thanked her extremely for all her good-
x^ ness and kind thoughts of him : '^ But you know,
Madam (said he), I can do nothing without you;
whatever my industry and watchfulness for your interest
and welfare suggest, it is you must execute: you,
Madam, are the sole mover of this Court ; whenever
your hand stops, everything must stand still, and, when-
ever that spring is changed, the whole system and
every inferior wheel must be changed too.. If I can
boast of any success in carrying on the King's affairs,
it is a success, I am very free to own, I never could

1734. WALPOLE'S CONFERENCE WITH THE QUEEN. 417

have had but by the mediation of your Majesty ; for if
I have had the merit of giving any good advice to the
King, all the merit of making him take it, Madam, is
entirely your own ; and so much so that I not only
never did do anything without you, but I know I never
could ; and if this country have the misfortune to lose
your Majesty, I should find it as impossible, divested of
your assistance, to persuade the King into any measure
he did not like, as, whilst we have the happiness of pos-
sessing your Majesty, any minister would find it to
persuade him into a step which you did not approve."

After this Sir Robert Walpole proposed putting off
his journey, which the Queen insisted he should not
do ; he then said he would desire Lord Hervey to give
him every post an exact account of her health, and
begged her Majesty would order Lord Hervey to send
it from her own mouth undisguised.

From the Queen's apartment Sir Robert Walpole
returned directly to Lord Hervey 's, sent for him from
his company into a private room, and there told him
everything that had passed above ; adding at the same
time how uneasy he was at the condition in which he
had found the Queen, and was obliged to leave her,
coughing incessantly, complaining extremely (which in
slight indispositions she never did), her head aching
and heavy, her eyes half shut, her cheeks flushed, her
pulse quick, her flesh hot, her spirits low, her breathing
oppressed, and, in short, all the symptoms upon her of
a violent and universal disorder.

He told Lord Hervey he had proposed to the Queen
to defer his journey into Norfolk, and said, notwith-
standing all she said against, that he would stay,

VOL. I. 2 E

418 LORD HERVKY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. Xm.

did he not think that^ in his own state of health, the
air and exercise of this expedition was absolutely ne-
cessary to fit him for going through the parliamentary
fatigues of the winter.

Lord Hervey said he saw no use Sir Robert Walpole
could be of to the Queen in her illness, but that he
owned he was sorry the foreign affairs were not better
settled before his departure. Sir Robert Walpole said,
^^ I am sure there will be no alteration made in them
in my absence ; the King having given orders for the
letter to be sent which is to carry his consent to Don
Carlos's marriage with the Archduchess, and the Queen
has promised me there shall be no expressions in
the letter that can be construed by the Emperor to be
any promise of assistance by force from England, in
case the mediation of England for peace should prove
ineffectual. I convinced her how proper it was to
steer clear of such engagements, by telling her it would
always be time enough to give the Emperor assistance
with force, if it should in fiiturity be thought expedient
and advisable so to do ; but that there could be no
good in making promise of it beforehand, or even in
giving such hints as might make assistance expected ;
in the first place, because such hopes might make the
Emperor more refiractory in schemes proposed for
accom]podation ; and in the next, because they might
afford him a handle to reproach England in case we did
not assist him, that it was upon account of the hopes given
that we would that he had resolved to run the hazard
of another campaign ; in which event, whatever losses
he sustained, his resentment against those by whom he
would say he was drawn in to suffer such misfortunes

1734. HERTEY'S CONFERENCE WITH WALPOLE. 419

and disgrace would he full as great as against those by
whom they were actually inflicted.

Lord Hervey told him he firmly believed the Queen
now intended to do what Sir Robert Walpole had
advised; " But consider, Sir,'* continued he, " how often
she has advanced, and how often retreated ; consider,
too, what eflPects the opportunity of your absence and
the importunity of those who diflTer from you may have
on her mind, and consequently on the King's counsels,
when, talking the sentiments of her heart and the dic-
tates of his inclination, they shall try, with such
powerful auxiliaries on their side, to efl&ce the im-
pressions you have left upon her reason — impressions
made with so much difficulty and received with so
much reluctance. You know how often this letter has
been ordered, and how often countermanded; how
often it has actually been written, and yet not sent,
from being conceived iil terms either hot approved
by those who counselled its being written, or by those
who were so unwillingly persuaded to order ifc You
yourself once told me that, when first this scheme of
accommodation was proposed, the King said he would
rather risk his Crown than suffer a Prince of the House
of Bourbon to have any chance to sit on the Imperial
Throne. This you got over, and gained his consent :
when you had done so, and tibe Duke of Newcastle had
orders to say to the Court of France that the King had
consented to the match, you, in order to make this mea-
sure seem a little consistent with die language that had
been talked to that Court at the time of the Treaty of
Hanover, were forced to dress up this letter with many
palliative expressions, pleading the necessity of the

2 e2

420 LORD HERVEVS MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIL

times, the alteration of circumstances, the exigency of
aflfairs, and several other particulars that were to recon-
cile these opposite ways of acting in different seasons,
and that looked as if this was a measure to which Eng-
land was rather forced than inclined. Accordingly,
when this letter so drawn was sent to the King, his
Majesty, who was not under the same obligations as his
Ministers to manage appearances and reconcile this
step with that of the Hanover Treaty, sent back the
letter to his Grace of Newcastle with no other comment
than these words written at the bottom of it : — * I do not
like this despatch^ and will not have it go^ Upon this the
Duke of Newcastle fretted, the King stormed, and yon
were forced to be quiet; reproached by his Grace,
snapped by his Majesty, and your distress laughed at
by the Queen, who was glad to see that accidentally
postponed which you had worried her into forwarding."

Sir Robert Walpole to this replied, that Lord
Hervey went back to a season when the Queen rather
yielded than concurred, and acquiesced without being
convinced ; but he assured him that now she was
brought over entirely to his way of thinking : in which
opinion he either flattered himself (deceived by the
Queen, and the propensity everybody has to believe
they convince when they persuade), or he endeavoured
to deceive Lord Hervey by saying what he wished, and
not what he thought.

During this conference Lord Hervey told Sir
Robert Walpole that he feared the King had over-
heard everything that had passed this evening between
him and the Queen. Sir Robert started at this, and
said, ^^Ifhe has^ it is impossible he can ever forgive me ;

1734. WALPOLE'S ALARM. 421

but what reason have you^ my dear Lord, to think so ?"
" I will tell you," replied Lord Hervey. " As soon as
you left me, having something to say to the Princess
Caroline, and knowing she always left the Queen when
you came to her, I went up to her apartment to take
that opportunity of speaking to her: not finding her
there, I went to the Queen's pages, asked of them
where she was, and from them I learned that the King,
with his three eldest daughters, when you came to the
Queen, went into the bed-chamber, which you know is
the next room to that where the Queen and you were
together. When I heard this, and reflected on what you
once told me at Kensington of his shutting himself up
in a closet, and leaving the door ajar to listen to a con-
ference between the Queen and you, I immediately
concluded that from the same curiosity he had now
done the same thing." " For God's sake (said Sir
Robert Walpole), Jind out whether it was so or not,
and let me know before I set out to-morrow morning
for Norfolk.'* Accordingly Lord Hervey, going im-
mediately up to the ball, there told Princess Caroline
that he had been at her apartment this evening, had
not found her at home, and wondered where she had
been : upon which she presently told him, that as soon
as Sir Robert Walpole came to the Queen, the King,
with her and her sisters, went through the Queen's bed-
chamber and the younger Princesses' apartment down
to their governess's lodgings, my Lady Deloraine.

Lord Hervey was not a little pleased to find his con-
jectures had been false, and quickly made Sir Robert
Walpole easy by a short note to tell him what the case

422 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVII.

had been : the next day Sir Kobert set out for Norfolk,
and soon after the Princess Royal again for Harwich,
where I shall leave her for some time, and return in
my narrative to St. James's.

The following passage^ evidently a fragment of a
somewhat undutiful criticism of the Princess Royal on
her father^ appears in the, MS^ but the words that
should have connected it with the text are lost : —

* * * " his giving himself airs of gallantry ; the im-
possibility of being easy with him ; his affectation of
heroism ; his unreasonable, simple, uncertain, disagree-
able, and often shocking behaviour to the Queen ; the
difficulty of entertaining him ; his insisting upon
people's conversation who were to entertain him being
always new, and his own being always the same thing
over and over again ; in short, all his weaknesses, all his
errors, and all his faults were the topics upon which at
Kensington, the summer after she was married (when
she was most with Lord Hervey), she was for ever
expatiating." y / ^^

H^

1734. LADY SUFFOLK. 423

CHAPTER XVIII.

Lady Suffolk— Rapture with the King^Go^ to Bath— Resolves to retire
—Sentiments of the Royal Family, Walpole, and the Public on this change
— Dodington discarded by the Prince — Favour of Lyttelton — Princess of
Orange puts to sea from Harwich, but returns — Proceeds at last by
Calais — Foreign Affiurs — Marriage of Don Carlos — Church Promotions
— Hoadley reluctantly advanced to Winchester — Struggle for and against
Rundle — Benson and Seeker appointed to Gloucester and Bristol, and
Bundle to Derry.

The interest of Lady Suffolk with the King had been
long declining: his nightly visits all last winter had
been much shorter than they used to be, and not with-
out sometimes a total intermission. His morning
walks, too, this last summer resembled his nightly visits
the preceding winter ; and all those who saw them to-
gether at the commerce-table in the evening in his pri-
vate apartment plainly perceived they were so ill
together that, when he did not neglect her, the notice
he took of her was still a stronger mark of his dislike
than his taking none. At Bichmond, where the house
is small, the walls thin, and what is said in one room
may be often overheard in the next, I was told by Lady
Bristol, mother to Lord Hervey, the lady of the bed-
chamber then in waiting (whose apartment was sepa-
rated from Lady Suffolk's only by a thin wainscot), that
she often heard the King talking there in a morning in
an angry and impatient tone; and though generally
she could only distinguish here and there a word, yet

424 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIU.

one morning particularly, whilst Lady Suffolk, who
always spoke in a low voice, seemed to be talking a
long while together, the King every now and then in-
terrupted her by saying over and over again, ** That is
none of your business, madam ; you have nothing to do
with that" The lady who told me this, being a little
addicted to weave fable in her narratives, I shoidd not
have given credit enough to her story to insert it had she
not related it to me before the transactions of the sum-
mer, and consequently when she could not do it from
that vanity, as natural perhaps to her as to many other
people, who love, upon the arrival of a remarkable in-
cident which few expected, to tell you some circum-
stances by which they endeavour to show they were, by
their great sagacity or good intelligence, much earlier
apprised of it than the gross herd of the world.

Towards the latter end of the summer Lady Suffolk,
who had long borne his Majesty's contempt, neglect,
snubs, and ill humour with a resignation that few people
who felt so sensibly could have suffered so patiently, at
last resolved to withdraw herself from these severe
trials, from which no advantage accrued but the con-
scious pride of her own fortitude in supporting them
with prudence.

On the pretence, therefore, or, more properly
speaking, on the plea of ill health, she asked leave
to go for six weeks to drink the Bath waters ; from
thence she returned the day before the birthday [30/A
Ocf} to St James's, but the King went no more to her
apartment; and when he met her in the Queen's
dressing-room spoke to her with the same indifference
that he would have done to any other lady of the

1734.

LADY SUFFOLK.

425

Queen's family, asking her only some slight common
drawing-room question.

That the King went no more in an evening to Lady
Suffolk was whispered about the Court by all that be-
longed to it, and was one of those secrets that everybody
knows, and everybody avoids publicly to seem to know.

Various were the sentiments of people on this oc-
casion. The Queen was both glad and sorry: her
pride was glad to have even this ghost of a rival
removed ; and she was sorry to have so much more of
her husband's time thrown upon her hands, when she
had already enough to make her often heartily weary
of his company, and to deprive her of other company
which she gladly would have enjoyed.

I am sensible, when I say the Queen was pleased
with the removal of Lady Suffolk as a rival, that I seem
to contradict what I have formerly said in these papers
of her being rather desirous (for fear of a successor) to
keep Lady Suffolk about the King, than solicitous to
banish her ; but, in describing the sentiments of the
same people at different times, human creatures are so
inconsistent with themselves, that the inconsistencyof ,
such descriptions often arises, not from the mistakes or
forgetfulness of the describer, but from the instability I
and changeableness of the person described. '

The Prince, I believe, wished Lady Suffolk removed,
as he would have wished anybody detached from the
King's interest; and, added to this. Lady Suffolk
having many friends, it was a step that he hoped would
make his father many enemies ; neither was he sorry,
perhaps, to have so eminent a precedent for a prince's
discarding a mistress he was tired of.

r

426 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVUT.

The Princess Emily wished Lady Suffolk's disgrace
because she wished misfortune to most people; the
Princess Caroline, because she thought it would please
her mother : the Princess Royal was violently for having
her crushed ; and when Lord Hervey said he wondered
she was so desirous to have this lady's disgrace pushed
to such extremity, she replied, ^^ Lady Suffolk's conduct
with regard to politics has been so impertinent that she
cannot be too ill usedf' and when Lord Hervey inti-
mated Ae danger there might be, from the King's
coquetry, of some more troublesome and powerful suc-
cessor, she said (not very judiciously with regard to
her mother, nor very respectfully with regard to her
father), " Iwish^ vnth all my hearty he would take some-
body else, that Mammamight be a little relieved from the
ennui of seeing him for ever in her room.'* At the same
time the King was always bragging how dearly his
daughter Anne loved him.

Sir Robert Walpole hated Lady Suffolk, and was
hated by her, but did not wish her driven out of St.
James's, imagining somebody would come in her place
who, from his attachment to the Queen, must hate him
as strongly, and might hate him more dangerously.

The true reasons of her disgrace ^ were the King's

1 There can be little doubt that her marriage with Mr. George Berkeley
— to which her retiHng from Court was a necessary preliminary — ^must have
been already settled, though it did not take place till next year ; as it seems
from the * Sufiblk Correspondence/ that the joamey to Bath was made with
his privity and advice, and he accompanied her thither, where there was
assembled a society of her old friends that could not be very agreeable to
the Court — Chesterfield, Pulteney, Pope, &c. It is very likely that she
might not have thought of this marriage if she had not felt her favour on
the decline, but it was calculated to reflect back oq her resignation some-
thing of a natural and voluntary character.

1734. LADY SUFFOLK RETIRES. 427

being thoroughly tired of her, her constant opposition
to all his measures, her wearying him with her per-
petual contradiction ; her intimacy with Mr. Pope, who
bad published several satires, with his name to them, in
which the King and all his family were rather more
than obliquely sneered at; the acquaintance she was
known to have with many of the opposing party, and
the correspondence she was suspected to have with
many more of them ; and, in short, her being no
longer pleasing to the King in her private capacity,
and every day more disagreeable to him in her public
conduct

About a fortnight, therefore, after her return firom
the Bath, finding the King persist in withholding his
usual visits, she took the resolution of quitting the
Court.^ She neither had, nor desired to have (that I
ever heard, at least), any 6claircissement with the
King, or to take any leave of him ; but asked an audi-
ence of the Queen^ with whom she was above an hour
and a half alone, and resigned her employment of
Mistress of the Robes. The next day she left the
Palace and went to her brother my Lord Hobart's
house in St. James's Square.

s Lady Suffolk left Bath on the 26th of October, arrived in town the 29th,
and resigned on the 11th of November.— Sti^f. Chr., ii. 119. The Duke
of Newcastle thus announces the event to Sir Robert Walpole, then in
Norfolk :—

<'Nov. 13, 1734.— You will see by the newspapers that Lady Suffolk
has left the Court The particulars that I had from the Queen are, that
l&cit week she acquainted the Queen with her design, putting it upon the
King's unkind usage of her. The Queen ordered her to stay a week,
which she did, but last Monday had another audience ; complained again of
her unkind treatment from the King — was very cvvil to the Queen— and
went that night to her brother's house in St. James's Square."— Coxe, iii.
209.

428 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIH.

What she said to the Queen I never could learn,
and, considering all circumstances, it must be very-
difficult to guess ; since I cannot imagine the mistress
could say to the wife, " Your husband not being so kind
to me as he used to be, I cannot serve you any longer f*
and for any other reasons Lady Suffolk could allege
for quitting the Queen's service, I am as much at a loss
to comprehend what they could be as I believe she was
to invent them.

This great Court revolution was for some time the
talk of the whole town. Those who were inclined to
make it a topic of invective against the King said it
showed the hardness of his nature, that, after Lady
Suffolk had undergone twenty years' slavery to his dis-
agreeable temper and capricious will, after she had
sacrificed her time, her quiet, her reputation, and her
health to his service and his pleasure, he could use a
woman of her merit, prudence, and understanding so ill
as to force her to this step, and for no other reasons
than her having, contrary to the servile conduct of most
courtiers, risked his favour in consulting his interest,
and ventured to tell him those disagreeable truths which
few favourites have honesty and regard enough for their
benefactors to impart, and fewer princes sense enough
to bear being informed o^ though for want of such in-
formation in time so many princes have been at last
undone.

To have heard Lady Suffolk's friends, or rather the
King's enemies, comment on this transaction, one would
have imagined that the King, instead of dropping a
mistress to give himself up entirely to a wife, had re-
pudiated some virtuous, obedient, and dutiful wife, in

1734. COMMENTS ON LADY SUFFOLK'S RETIREMENT. 429

order to abandon himself to the dissolute commerce and
dangerous sway of some new favourite.

Those who justified the King upon this occasion
said it was very natural for a man of so uxorious a
turn, and so passionately fond of his wife, to think
little of any other woman, especially at his time of
life ; and that nobody surely could imagine there
was any great immorality or any great injustice
in his giving those hours to the Queen which he
used to pass with Lady Suffolk ; nor was it very sur-
prising that, in consulting his pleasure only, he should
prefer the conversation of a woman who was all cheer-
fulness, resignation, and compliance, to that of another
who was for ever thwarting his inclinations, reflecting
on his conduct, and contradicting his opinion; that he
should like one who was always flattering him better
than one who was always finding fault with him ; or be
more pleased with her who was always solving difficul-
ties than with her who was always starting them. It was
further added, that, since the King intended to continue
Lady Suffolk's pension, sure she had no reason to com-
plain, or to think the punishment inflicted on her for
censuring his Ministers and condemning all his mea-
sures a very severe one, since it was nothing more than
his withdrawing himself from hearing what he could
not prevent her from uttering.

The malcontents were extremely pleased with this
new acquisition to their party, and exulted much in the
hopes of this ungrateful conduct of the King's, as they
called it, towards Lady Suffolk, occasioning great
clamour, and increasing the odium which these indus-

430 LOM) HERVEY S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVHL

trious anti-courtiers lost no opportunity of propagating
against him ; but it was a great alloy to their joy, and
a great satisfaction to those they opposed, to see this
back door to the King's ear (the only way by which
any reflections on his Ministers could be conveyed) at
last shut up : nor was it matter of less sorrow to one
party than joy to the other to imagine that, after so
signal a sacrifice to the Administration, few people in
the palace, though ever so well disposed to the Oppo-
nents or disaffected to the Minister, would venture, by
the same remonstrances to the King, to incur the same
fate ; everybody, both firiends and foes, being equally
persuaded that the example of this wreck would deter
any other person from sailing near those rocks on which
Lady Suffolk had split.

As to the clamour this event would occasion, they
must know very little of the nature of Courts or man-
kind who flatter themselves that the disgrace of one
person, let that person be ever so amiable or consider-
able, would be anything more than the novel of a fort-
night, which everybody would recount and everybody
forget ; or that an enemy out of the Court would ever
be able to give material disturbance to those whom
they vainly endeavoured to molest whilst they were
in it

In this manner, then, after twenty years' duration,
ended the nominal favour and enervate reign of poor
Lady Suffolk, who never had power enough to do good
to those to whom she wished well, though, by working
on the susceptible passions of him whom she often
endeavoured to irritate, she had just influence enough,

1Y34.

DOBINGTON DISCARDED BY THE PBINCE.

431

by watching her opportunities, :to distress those some-
times to whom she wished ill.

About the time of this disgrace there happened
another, in the Prince's Court, of a very different na-
ture; I mean that of Mr. Dodington, which began
now to be commonly known and publicly talked oi^ bat
in a manner very unlike that in which people spoke of
Lady Suffolk's. For as, in Lady Suffi)lk's casc^ many,
from political considerations, rqoiced at her removal,
though none from personal enmity rejoiced at her mis-
fortunes, so with regard to Mr. Dodington it was just
the reverse : nobody in a political light thinking it of
any consequence whether he was in or out of the
Prince's favour ; and everybody, from personal dislike
to the man, being glad of his meeting with any morti-
fication. Mr. Dodington, whilst some people have the
je ne sais quoi in pleasing, possessed the je ne sais quoi
in displeasing, in the strongest and most universal
degree that ever any man was blessed with that gift — '^
being, with good parts and a great deal of wit, as far
from agreeable in company as he was, notwithstanding
his knowledge and his great fortune, from being es-
teemed by any party, or making any figure in the
State. He was one of those unfortunate people whom
it was the fashion to abuse, and ungenteel to be seen
with ; and many people really despised him, who natu- ,
rally, one should have imagined, were rather in a situa-
tion to envy him. His vanity in company was so over-
bearing, so insolent, and so insupportable, that he
seemed to exact that applause as his due which other
people solicit, and to think he had a right to make
every auditor his admirer. /

432 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIIL

The reason the Prince gave for disliking and dis-
carding him was, *^ that he hated those trimming das-
tard souls that had not resolution enough to oppose
those whom they were always condemning ; and could
never think such men honest as were always abetting
those measures in public which they were always cen-
suring in private; any more than he could ever ap-
prove people's conduct who were perpetually acting
openly in concert with the very men that they were
for ever secretly abusing and defaming."

Right sentiments these, and pompous expressions; but
the Prince's heart was no more capable of giving birth
to such sentiments, than his capacity was of clothing
them in such words. Lord Chesterfield had repeated
these sayings till the Prince had got them by heart,
and then gave them as his own reasons for doing, from
honesty and judgment, that which in reality he did
from levity and weakness.

The Prince used to say, too, that it was impossible
but that there must be something very wrong in a man
who not only had no friend, but whom everybody who
mentioned him at all spoke of as an enemy.

Mr. Lyttelton,* a nephew of Lord Cobham's, whom
Dodington had brought about the Prince, had con-
tributed too to this disgrace ; for Dodington, from irre-
solution, or fear of throwing the Prince (as I have said
before) into the hand of those who were at the head of
the opposing party, had dissuaded the Prince from
going those lengths to which Lord Cobham and Lord
Chesterfield, who were exasperated to the last degree

8 Afterwards Sir George and Lord Lyttelton, now about 25 years old.

1784. LYTTBLTON. 433

against the Court, wished to drive him. Lyttelton,
therefore, who did and said everything his uncle, Lord
Cobham, wished he should, was for ever, by proxy from
Lord Cobham, su^esting at one ear what Lord Ches-
terfield was administering in person at the other, both
of them inculcating that Dodington's game was so to
play the Prince's favour as to keep him in a sort of
iquilibre till he found to which party he could sell his
Royal Highness to the best advantage.

Among many other things which Lyttelton suggested
to the Prince to depreciate Dodington, he once said to
him, " Though I hate Sir Robert Walpole myself and
think him a bad man and a bad Minister, yet, when I
reflect how partial he has formerly been to Dodington,
the favours he has conferred upon him, the manner in
which he brought him into the world, and the credit in
which he supported him there, I own I am shocked
when I hear Dodington railing at him ; and though all
he says may be true, yet the obligations he has to Sir
Robert Walpole make me hate the ungrateful man
who can forget them ; and I feel myself more exasper-
ated against Dodington for publishing and exaggerat-
ing Sir Robert Walpole's faults than I am against Sir
Robert for committing them."

Whilst Lyttelton was saying these things to the
Prince, he never reflected that it was Dodington who
brought him first to that ear into which he was now
pouring them ; and that he himself was, consequently,
in a stronger degree, the very thing to Dodington
which he was so vehemently reviling Dodington for
being to Sir Robert Walpole.

This new favourite, Mr. Lyttelton, was, in his figure,

VOL. I. 2 P

<^

434 LORD HBRYST'S UEMOmS. Chap. XTHI.

extremely tall and thin ;^ his face was so ugly, his per-
son so ill made, and his carri^e so awkward, that every
feature was a blemish, every limb an incumbrance, and
every motion a disgrace ; but, as disagreeable as his
figure was, his voice was still more so, and his address
more disagreeable than either. He had a great flow
of words that were always uttered in a lulling mono*
tony, and the little meaning they had to boast of was
generally borrowed from the commonplace maxims
and sentiments of moralists, philosophers, patriots^ and
poets, crudely imbibed, half digested, ill put together,
and confusedly refunded.

Dodington's house, in Fall-Mall, stood close to the
garden ^ the Prince had bought there of Lord Chester-
field ; and during Dodington's favour the Prince had
suffered him to make a door out of his house into this
garden, which, upon the first decay of his interest, the
Prince shut up — building and planting before Doding^
ton's house, and changing every lock in his own to
which he had formerly given Dodington keys. Dod-
ington, when he found Lord Chesterfield had sup-
planted and Lyttelton undermined him, retired into
the country imaccompanied and as much unpitied in
his disgrace as unenvied in his prosperity.

I shall now return to the Princess Royal, who, the
day after she came to Harwich [ Wednesday , 6<A Nov^^

4 Thus described in a caricature and doggrel lampoon of the day : —
'< But who is dat bestride a pony,
So long, so lean, so lank, so bony?
Dat be the great orator Lytteltony ! "

ft Part of what was in our day the garden of Carlton House, since built
on widi little taste, and less regard to public interests.

1734. PRINCSS8 ROYAL BETUIWS. 435

embarked there for Holland. When she had been some
time at sea she grew so ill that she either was, or made
all those about her aay she was, in convulsions ; and the
wind not being quite fair, she obliged the Captain of the
yacht, after lying several hours at anchor, to tack about
and put her again on shore at Harwich. As soon as she
arrived there she despatched a courier to London with
letters (written, as it was supposed, by her own absolute
command) from her physician, her man-midwife, and
her nurse, to say she was so disordered with this expe«-
dition that she could not be stirred these ten days from
her bed without running the greatest danger of mis-
carrying, nor put to sea again at all without the hazard
both of her child's life and her own. All her train
wrote in the same style ; and the same judgment was
made on these proceedings by the King and Queen,
the whole Court, and the whole kingdom — which was,
that her Boyal Highness was determined, if possible,
to persuade, entreat, or fright her husband and her
parents into consenting that she should lie-in in
England.

The King and Queen, though she wrote for orders
what she should do, declined giving any, but said the
Prince of Orange ought to be consulted, and his direc-
tions followed. The Prince of Orange was written to
by the same people who had written to the King and
Queen, and in the same strain ; but he, knowing of
what prejudice it would be to his affairs to have the
Princess Royal lie-in in England, and seeing plainly it
was that she drove at, wrote to his wife to propose her
coming by Calais, and to the Queen to beg of her not
only not to oppose this proposal, but to expostulate with

2f2

436 LOKD HERVKTS MEMOIRS. Ckap. XVm.

her daughter, and forward this expedient, in case she
found the Princess averse to it

These delays made the King, who was always im-
patient under unavoidable difficulties, but outrageous
with those who started any unnecessary ones, so peevish
with his daughter that he made the Queen write to say
she must and should lie-in in Holland ; and, since the
Prince of Orange desired she might go by Calais, and
that it was thought for her safety she should do so,
he consented to it : but this was much against his will,
on account of the uncertain terms upon which this
Court now was with the Court of France. At die
same time that the King ordered the Duke of New-
castle to let M. Chavigny know that the Prince of
Orange desired the Princess Royal might go by France
into Holland, he charged his Grace to insist on her
being received there entirely as a private person ; and
that there might not at St James's be all the bustle of
a new parting, which must have been the consequence
of a new meeting, he ordered the Princess Boyal to go
across the country the nearest way from Harwich to
Dover, without coming by London. But his Majesty
being afterwards informed that those roads were im-
passable at this time of the year in a coach, he said,
then she might come to London and go over the
bridge ; but that positively she should not lie-in in Lon-
don, nor come to St. James's. Accordingly, after all
her tricks and schemes to avoid going to Holland, and
to get back to London, she was obliged to comply with
these orders, and had the mortification and disgrace to
go, without seeing any of her family, over London
Bridge to Dover [21^^ Nov.'}^ from whence, by Calais

1734. PRINCESS ROYAL'S CONDUCT CONDEMNED. 437

'* (where the Prince of Orange met her), she went through

Flanders to Holland.

' Everybody condemned her conduct in this whole

^ affair, in which her passions and her inclinations

entirely got the better of her reason and her under-
standing. In the first place, everybody wondered
she should mistake her own interest, and sacrifice her
husband's, so far as to desire to lie-in here ; and, in the
next place, that she should judge so ill as to imagine,
though she was imprudent enough to desire it, that it
would be possible for her to compass it ; or that she

1 should not be deterred by her love to England fipom

showing there were so many difficulties attended her
coming hither. Already the resolution was taken and
declared, both by the King and Queen, that upon no
account would they ever give her leave to come here
again when she was with child. The Queen saw all the
false steps her daughter had made, and, as she could not
quite disown them, blamed them a little, but repined
at them more. The King, teased with the difficulties
attending this journey, and not extremely pleased with
the expense of it (which amounted to 20,000/.), said
he would positively hear no more about it, and snapped
everybody who mentioned the Princess Koyal's name.
The Princess Emily, as much as she dared, censured
and condemned her sisters conduct; the Princess
Caroline, as much as she could, excused and softened
it. The Princess Emily told Mrs. Clayton she was
very glad her sister was to lie-in in Holland, not only
for the sake of the Prince of Orange's affairs, for which
she thought it absolutely necessary, but because she was
sure her brother would have disliked, of all things, her

438 LOKD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XVUI.

sister*8 being brought to bed in England. Mrs. Clayton
very pertinently and reasonably replied, " I cannot
imagine, Madam, how it can sS&ct the Prince at all
where she lies-in, since, with regard to tiiose who wish
none of your Koyal Highness's family on the throne, it
is no matter whether she is brought to bed here or in
Holland, or of a son or a daughter, or whether she has
any child at all ; and, with regard to those who wish
all your family well, for your sakes. Madam, as well as
our own, we diall be very glad to take any of you in
your turn, but not one of you out of it"*

During all these transactions the Queen, though
mending, continued ill enough to keep her room, and
did so till the end of November.

When Sir Robert Walpole came back irom Norfolk
he affected talking of Lady Suffolk's abdication as a
thing Ihat had greatly surprised him when he heard it,
disclaiming entirely the having had any hand in her
disgrace, though he knew, he said, it had been imputed
to his cabals. But this was giving himself a very un-
necessary trouble; few people believing that he had
not done Lady Suffolk all the ill offices he could, and
of those few not one imagining that, if he had not done
his utmost to drive her from the palace, it was firom
any tenderness towards her that he had desired she
should remain there.

But, whatever pleasure Sir Robert Walpole might
find from this domestic incident, it was much over-

V There seems to have been in this coDvereation « latent allusion to tbe
Princess Royal's prospect of the throne, neither of her brothers being
married ; and this perhaps may account for the Princesses (otherwise an-
reasonable) anxiety to lie-in in England.

1734. MR. ROBIXSOX. 439

balanced by the concern he felt from a foreign trans-
action; for, notwithstanding he was so sanguine when
he went into Norfolk, and so secure that nothing could
happen to defeat the proposal he had at last brought
their Majesties to make at Vienna, of marrying die
second Archduchess to Don Carlos, yet his back was
no sooner turned but the King and Queen (as Lord
Hervey told him they would) relapsed into their former
reluctance, or rather abhorrence, to this union : nor was
it unsuspected by Sir Bobert, though he could never
prove it, that the King himself, either by Lord Harring-
ton or by a juggle through some German hand, did
convey some hint to Mr. Bobinson'' (the English minis-
ter at Vienna) not to be too pressing to bring dds
affair of the marriage to a successful issue* When Mr.
Bobinson's answer came back which was to give an
account of the conference he had held with the Impe-
rial Ministers in consequence of the commisabn he had
received to treat of this marriage, his despatch was cer-
tainly, for tiie purpose it was to serve, extremely well
drawn ; that is, it was impossible more plausibly to de-
feat what his public orders were to promote, or more
artfolly to gloss over a series of reasoning which,
stripped of the florid poetical ornaments with which
Mr. Bobinson's despatches always abounded, and re-
duced to a plain narrative, seemed rather to be the pro-
duction of a German courtier, flattering the unreason-
able pride of an Austrian prince, than of an English
minister, concerned for the service of his master, the
interest of his country, or the repose of Europe.

f Afterwards for a short time Secretary of State at home, and created
Lord Granfbam in 1761.

440 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIII.

When Sir Kobert Walpole went into the King's
closet the day after this despatch arrived from Kobin-
son, the first thing the King said to Sir Kobert Walpole
was, " You find me with Bobinson s letter in my hand^
which I have just been reading again for the third
time, and I think it the ablest despatch and the best
drawn paper I ever read in my life." Sir Kobert
smiled and made no answer ; upon which the King
asked him why he did not speak, and desired him to
give his thoughts freely upon it. Sir Bobert said, the
reason why he made no answer was because he would
never speak anything but his thoughts, and that those,
unless he was commanded to deliver them, it was some-
times more respectfiil as well as more prudent to keep
to himself. "What do you mean?'* replied the King.
" I mean, Sir," said Sir Bobert, " that this is either
the weakest or the ablest despatch I ever saw; but
which of the two it is, your Majesty can only determine.
If Mr. Bobinson had no orders but what the Duke of
Newcastle conveyed to him, and I was consulted in,
Mr. Bobinson ought to be recalled by the next messen-
ger that goes to Vienna, and disgraced : if he had any
others, those who are ignorant what those orders were
can never be proper judges how well or how ill they
have been executed." The King seemed disconcerted,
and neither denied nor avowed any secret instructions
conveyed to Bobinson ; but said he thought the letter
was a very sensible account of those difficulties, unfore-
seen here, which very naturally arose in the councils of
Vienna to a proposal certainly little for their honour,
and very doubtfiiUy for their interest. The King
turned the conversation, immediately after he had said

1734. HOADLET. 441

thisy to some domestic subject, and never entered upon
it afterwards. But Sir Bobert Walpole, when I have
spoken to him of this matoh being the only natural and
safe termination of these squabbles, has always answered,
^^ This mateh had long ago been perfected, had it not
been for Mr. Bobinson, who deserved hanging for his
conduct in that affair :" adding, that he was as obstinate
a German and as servile an Imperialist as Hatolf.

There happened this year some commotions in the
Church, proceeding from promotions to be made there,
which I must not pass over in silence. The two vacant
sees of Gloucester and Winchester gave rise to these
contests. But though Winchester was one of the best,
and Gloucester one of the worst bishoprics in England,
yet the latter occasioned much the greatest struggle,
contrary to the common course of ecclesiastical dis-
putes, where the degree of contention is generally pro-
portioned to the degree of profit annexed to the thing
contended for.

The bishopric of Winchester, whenever it should fall,
had been long promised, both by the Queen and Sir
Bobert Walpole, to Bishop Hoadley, to palliate the
disappointment and the injustice, as he thought it, and
most people called it, of Durham having been given to
another. This promise had been solemnly and fre-
quently renewed to him during the time in which the
Court had applied to him to divert the storm, already
mentioned, that threatened, two years ago, from the
Presbyterian quarter about the Test Act Lord Hervey,
who had great friendship for Bishop Hoadley, knew
that neither the King, Queen, nor Sir Bobert Walpole
loved him, and would be glad^ if they could have found

442 LOED HEBVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIH.

any way to put him by, not to confer this benefice upon
him. Immediately, therefore, upon hearing that the
Bishop of Winchester [Willis] was seized with an apo-
plectic fit, of which it was impossible he should recover.
Lord Hervey despatched a messenger to Salisbury,
where Bishop Hoadley then was, with the following
letter: —

'< Kenoogton, Avg- 7, 1734.
" My d£ar Lord,

" I HAVE often sent yon letters of no consequence,
merely for the pleasure of conversing with you, but, for the
first time in my life, I hope now to send you one that may be
of use to you,

** In short, the Bishop of Winchester is certainly dying, and
this messenger comes to charge you, on this critical conjunc-
ture, not to let your natural modesty, and hitherto insuperable
awkwardness in solicitation, so far get the better of your pru-
dence as to induce you, Mahomet like, to sit still and &ncy
the mountain of preferment will walk to you to Salisbury :
come up immediately, and in the mean time, since application
must be made I need not tell you where (you know the K.'s
two ears * as well as I do), apply to them both ; and, if I may
advise, art as if you were not secure, and write to them as if
you were. Be sure you exert yourself on this occasion, and
remember you are now shaking that die upon the cast of which
the future happiness of your life depends: the odds are of
yoiu* side, but, as long as there is a possibility of losing, no-
body with so great a stake depending can play too cautiously.
Do not talk to me of security from former promises ; I know
Court promises too well to believe they are ever k^»t, though
ever so solemnly made, without being claimed ; the best Court
paymaster must be dunned, and dunned a good deal — they pay
few debts for the honour of paying them ; their memories, too, are
abominable — ^I mean to debts of gratitude, not of resentment

* The Queen and Walpole.

1734. HOADLEY« 443

^' Remember how you failed of Durham— at least, that
you were told you failed from silenoe. Write therefore now,
come, speak, dun, and behave, not as your laziness inclines
you, but as your interest directs, as common prudence dictates,
as your friends advise, and as what you owe to yourself and
your family requires.

« Adieu," Ac-

The Bishop of Salisbury's answer was as follows : —

" Salbbmy, Aug. 8, 1734.
" My dear Lord,

" All the entertainment you have ever given me by
your former letters (which has been in truth as great as one
ought in reason to wish for) bears no proportion to the real
pleasure I had in reading yours this morning ; the part you
take in my interest, the spirit of friendship whidi breathes in it,
the voluntary advising me in what in truth I need advice —
these feel to me more tenderly pleasant, as well as more
rationally agreeable, than all that wit and humour which in
you I think are inexhaustible. The kind and good advice you
give me is the advice of all the packets from my friends at
London, and of every heart except my own. But I now yield
up that, and am resolved to come up to London ; and, as our
friend Mr. CC°. particularly advised me if this case hap-
pened, to write to the Q. herself, as well as to Sir R., from
both whom I have had as express assurance of the thing as if
(Hie of their messengers, with a postboy before him and a grey-
hound upon his breast, were sent down to me, upon the pro-
spect of a vacancy, with a strong letter in form. Particularly
Sir R. gave me the kindest reception at Chelsea just before I
came hither, and, resolved to speak plainly, said these or Hke
words : — * If that vacancy should happen, you are as sure of
succeedii^ as if you were now in possession,' After sucb words,
and so many promises to me, repeated to all my friends,'! can
no more doubt of that great man's knowing it to be certidnly
fixed, or of his hearty and effectual concurrence in it, than I
can of the plainest thing in the world. But, however, as I have
the most express promises, given and renewed without my ask-

444 ' LORD HBRVETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIH.

ing, to claim upon, I can more eaaly preyail upon myself U>
work for myself than I could in a former case in which that
particular happiness was wanting. I should he glad of stronger
nerves and more courage. Methinks I could go on prating to
your Lordship a great while longer (though long enough
already you feel) were it not that I have several letters to
write by the post of to-day ; I therefore must despatch your
messenger back again immediately. Adieu. Go on to give
me the pleasure of such iriendship ; and believe me, wherever
I am, whether nailed down to the beauties of this place or
removed to those of another, whether at Sarum still or at
Famham, I am truly, my Lord,

« Yours, &c.

^^ I hope to be in Grosvenor Street on Saturday night. I
design to thank Lady Hervey myself for her very obliging
answer to what I sent her."

Bishop Hoadley took Lord Hervey's advice, and
wrote two letters — one to be given immediately to the
Queen, and the other to be given to Sir Robert as soon
as ever the Bishop of Winchester was dead. Both these
letters I saw, but have no copies of them. The sub-
stance of them was not solicitation, but a modest claim
of the promise that had been made him. Lord Hervey
came to the Queen just after she had received this
letter, and found her in that froward disposition towards
Bishop Hoadley which people generally feel when they
find themselves pressed to do that which they would
but cannot avoid. She asked Lord Hervey if he did
not blush for the indecent conduct of his iipiend in this
early and pressing application for a thing not yet
vacant Lord Hervey assured her it was vacant, for
tbat the Bishop of Winchester was actually dead, and
that the Bishop of Salisbury had done nothing but

1784. HOADLKTS TRANSLATION TO WINCHESTER. 445

what all his friends had advised him to, contrary to the
dictates of his own natural modesty and backwardness
upon those occasions. He added, too, that one of the
reasons formerly alleged for Bishop Hoadley missing
of the bishopric of Durham was his not having asked
it; and that it would be very hard he should have
fiiiled in one case for having made no application, and
be reproached in another for the contrary conduct
Whilst Lord Hervey was speaking the King came in;
and as long as the conversation was continued upon
this topic, both the King and Queen spoke of the
Bishop in such a manner as plainly showed they
neither esteemed nor loved him. It is true the prin-
ciples which Hoadley professed, and the doctrines he
propagated, could be agreeable to few princes, as they
could only please such as preferred the prosperity of
their people to the grandeur of their Crown, the liber*
ties of their subjects to the increase of their ovm power,
the rights and privileges of mankind to the usurpation
of sovereigns, the true end of government to the capa*
city of abusing it, and the cause of justice to the lust of
dominion. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, a great favourite
of the Queen's, strongly solicited at this time the vacant
bishopric of Winchester; and, as Sir Robert Walpole
told me, had certainly obtained it, had he not inter-
posed and told the Queen that the engagements she
was under to Hoadley were such that it would be scan-
dalous for her to break through them. Whether this
was strictly true I know not, but that Hoadley was at
last made Bishop of Winchester is certain ; and as cer-
tain it is, so extraordinary are some Court events, that
this preferment, one of the best in the gift of the

446 LOBB HERTET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIII.

Crown, was conferred upon a man hated by fihe King;
disliked by the Queen, and long estranged firom the
friendship of Sir Kobert Walpole. The truth was, that
to palliate a present disappointment they had made re-
versionary promises which they neither cared to keep
nor dared to break. This Hoadley guessed to be the
situation of his affairs, and therefore received with no
great thankfulness what was bestowed with so little
good will— ^^apud eum plus prior offmsa valuisset quant
recentia benejicia:" — "With him the prior offence had
greater weight than the recent favour." — {Tacitus.)
And Winchester, now reluctantly conferred, atoned not
for Durham, formerly unjustly conferred upon another.
However, when this thing was done, the King,
Queen, and Sir Robert, all three acted perfectly in
character — the King not speaking one word to him
either when he kissed his hand or did homage, but
contriving, as was often his way, to shock whilst he
granted, and to disoblige whilst he preferred. The
Queen, on the other hand, when she found she could
not put him by, resolved to make the most of pro-
moting him ; told him how glad she was to see him
advanced as high in dignity and profit as he had long
been in merit and reputation, and assured him witii
what pleasure she embraced this occasion of proving to
him the sincerity of all her former professions. She
acted this part so well too, that the Bishop afterwards
bragged to Lord Hervey of the kind manner in which
the Queen had received him ; and with all his under-
standing was the dupe of that insincerity to which he
was so near being a sacrifice. In the mean time Sir
Robert Walpole, by hints to the Bishop himself and

1784. RUKDLB. 447

by plainer intiinations through his friends, arrogated
the whole merit of this promotion to himself; and more
than insinuated that he had not been able to incline
the King and Queen to this choice, but forced them to
make it, even against their inclination.

Sherlock succeeded Hoadley at Salisbury ; but the
Bishop of London, though Sherlock and he lived better
together of late than they had done, was pleased with
neither of these translations.

To the bishopric of Gloucester, which had now been
vacant above a twelvemonth, the Lord Chancellor
[Talbot], whilst he was Solicitor-General, had recom-
mended one Dr. Bundle,* a chaplain of his father's
the late Bishop of Durham, and a particular friend of
his ovm. This man lay under the suspicion of Arian-
ism ; but as this was a crime that could not be proved
upon him, the objection the Bishop of London made
to him was, that about fourteen or fifteen years ago
he had in private company spoken disrespectfiiUy of
Abraham, which one Venn,^® a parson then in company,
had told to the Bishop of London, and was ready to
testify against Bundle upon oath. Those who were in-
clined to soften the conduct of honest Mr. Venn, said the
man had done this out of his enthusiastical zeal for the
cause of the Church, and from the simple dictates of a
good conscience, to prevent so improper a pastor from

* Pope, always ready to join in the opposition to the minister, the court,
and the church, endeavoured to disparage the other bishops by selecting the
obooxioiu Bundle for the peculiar praise of " having a heart^' —
'* JBven in a buhop I can spy desert ;
Seeker is decent— Rundle has a heart.** — Ed.
Such praise was contemptuous to those named, and meant to stigmatize
all the others as having neither decency nor feeling.

10 Richard Venn, the father of the more celebrated Henry Venn.

448 LOBD HERVETS MEMOIRS. Chaf. XVIIL

being intrusted witb episcopal authority and a Chris-
tian flock. Those who put the worst constructioii, and
I believe the truest, upon this proceeding, said that
Venn had acted in concert with the Bishop of London
to make his court fihere, and in order to forward his
own preferment in the Church by thus obstructing
Bundle's. Nobody doubted but that the Bishop of
London's sole ^^ reason for opposing Bundle was because
my Lord Chancellor had made application to the Court
in his favour, not through the Bishop of London, but
merely upon his own weight and interest ; and as the
Bishop of London had always disliked what he called
lay reccmimendcUionSj he was determined to make a
stand upon this occasion, thinking, if he could show
that even so great a man as my Lord Chancellor could
not get any one preferred in Ihe Church without
applying to him, for the future no other person would
attempt it But as these reasons for opposing Bundle's
preferment were such as the Bishop of London could

n There seem no grounds for imputing this against Bishop Gibeon, as
his sole or even his principal motive. At best it could only have been a
suspicion or inference of Lord Hervey's own ; and surely there was in the
iact stated (and Lord Hervey understates it) a sufficient cause of objectiaQ
to Rundle. But in the whole of this narrative the reader should bear in
mind Lord Hervey's anti-church prejudices ; and his partiality to Hoadley
and Rundle will certunly not tend to the removal of the suspicions enter-
tained of their orthodoxy.

Horace Walpole ^ves us the clue to Queen Caroline's patronage of this
class of divines. ** The Queen's chief study was divinity, and she had
rather weakened her faith than enlightened it. She was at least not ortho-
dox ; and her confidant, Lady Sundon, an absurd and pompous simpleton,
swayed her countenance to the less bdieving clergy. * * * As Sir Robert
muntained his influence over the clergy by Gibson Bbhop of London, he
often met troublesome obstructions from Lady Sundon, who espoused, as I
have sud, the heterodox clei^y, and Sir Robert never could shake her
credit."— JZemiiitMences.

1734. BUNDLE'S CASE. 449

neither urge nor avow, others were to be given to
weigh with the Administration, though these only
weighed with him. He therefore declared he had no
objection to my Lord Chancellor's recommendation,
though he had to the man recommended ; neither had
he any one himself to recommend, or any article to
insist upon in this promotion but one, which was to
beg, for the love of God, that the King at least would
vouchsafe to give the bench a Christian.

Whilst this contest grew every day more warm be-
tween my Lord Chancellor and the Bishop of London,
many ranged themselves in the party of the first, from
regard to his character, but many more from disregard
to that of the latter ; and most of those who pretended
the greatest commiseration for the hard measure given
to Bundle, acted on this occasion as mankind every
day act on many others, which is, pretending compas-
sion for the oppressed only that they may inveigh with
a better grace against the oppressor, whom they affect
to dislike for abusing power, whilst they really hate
him chiefly for having it.

The Bishop of London, by his intrigues, got most of
the other bishops to join with him, and easily persuaded
the majority of the inferior clergy to talk in his strain ;
for much eloquence is never wanting to induce any
class of men to list themselves under the banner of that
leader who has the chief power of distributing those
rewards in the hopes of which they all enter the service.
By these means his Lordship himself first blew the
fiame against Bundle among the clergy, and then made
use of that flame as an argument to SirBobertWalpole
to strengthen the suggestions and solicitations of that

VOL. I. 2 Q

450 LORB HERTEY*S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVIIL

very resentment which had raised it Many pamphlets
were written, and with great yirulence, on both sides ;
but the two principals were very differently treated in
these productions, for, whilst my Lord Chancellor's
name was never mentioned but with decency, the
Bishop of London was pelted with all the opprobrious
language that envy and malice ever threw at eminence
and power."

Sir Bobert Walpole, who feared to disoblige either
of these great men, but was much more desirous to
oblige the one than the other, went to my Lord Chan-
cellor, and begged of him to relinquish his suit in favour
of Bundle, offering him at the same time to make
Bundle a Dean, or whenever the bishopric of Derry
in Ireland should fall, which was now possessed by
[Henry Downs], a crazy old fellow of four score, and
worth SOOOL a-year, to send Bundle thither. He
assured him, too, that the King was inclined, as well
as himself, to do anything at his request that was rea-
sonable or safe ; but as this promotion was so violently
opposed by the clergy in general, and the bishops in
particular, the King could not, without manifest danger
to his own affiiirs in Parliament, venture to gratify his
Lordship on this occasion. He iurther added that he
was sure his Lordship wished so well to the King's
affairs and to the common cause, that, however unrea-
sonable he might think the opposition made to Bundle,
yet he would not press his promotion to this bishopric
if the consequence of it must be the dividing a weight
in the House of Lords that had hitherto gone entire^
and was so essential to the ease of carrying on the

i> This, seeing how Lord Henrey joins in the cry, b at lesst candid.

1784. RUKDLE'S CASB. 451

King s business ; — at the same time desiring my Lord
Chancellor to recollect what trouble, in the last Parlia-
ment, a defection only of five or six Scotch lords had
given, and how much more dangerous consequently it
would be for the Court to do anything that might
make any breach or produce any revolt among the
bishops. He told him, too, that the Bishop of London
had absolutely revised to consecrate Bundle in case
the King persisted in making him a bishop. To which
my Lord Chancellor replied, that the Bishop of London
must know, if he did refuse to consecrate Bundle, that
he incurred apremunire. Sir Bobert said no, for, as it
was the Archbishop's business to consecrate him, it was
he would incur diat penalty in case of refiisal ; but the
Archbishop [Wake] being ill, and the Bishop of London
only acting as his deputy, no man can oblige another
to act by a delegated power; and consequently the
Bishop of London, by refusing to accept of the dele-
gation, would not be liable to the same penalty that the
Archbishop would incur in case he were able to offi-
ciate and refused it My Lord Chancellor then said
other bishops might be found to do this office, if the
Bishop of London would not " And would you, my
Lord," replied Sir Bobert Walpole, " advise or desire
the King to do that which should bring this question
to be debated, and draw a point of his prerogative into
dispute that has never yet been controverted ? I am
sure I will not advise the King to such a step ; and
whilst I have the honour to serve the Crown, and have
any influence in the King's councils, I will rather
advise the King never to fill up the see of Gloucester
than to do it with such consequences attending it

2g2

452 LORD HBRVEY*S MEMOIRS. Chap. XVm.

My Lord Chancellor said, " According to this way of
reasoning, the Bishop of London then must have a
negative on every man the King ever nominated to a
bishopric ; and if this manner of arguing was to prevail,
instead of the election made by a Dean and Chapter
being only a matter of form, the King's recommenda-
tion itself would become only a form, and the Bishop
of London must give the King a congS to nominate
before the King could ever order a congS dCilire.^

Sir Robert Walpole said that the case of Bundle was
a particular case ; and though the Bishop of London
could not now relinquish his opposition without losing
his interest with the clei^, yet he believed, as the
Bishop was heartily sorry he had embarked in this
opposition, so, instead of its being an encouragement to
give the same disturbance another time, he believed it
would prevent him from ever falling into the same
error again.

" You acknowledge it, then, to be an error?" inter-
rupted my Lord Chancellor. " I do," said Sir Bobert,
'^ but it is one which I fear it is now too late to remedy.
For your Lordship, you have certainly acquitted your-
self to Bundle by the strenuous part you have taken
in soliciting his cause ; but, if I may take the liberty
of saying it, I think there is a duty you owe the King
as well as a duty to your friend. You have dischai^ed
the one, and I am persuaded you will never neglect
the other ; and if the King, in the most gracious and
the kindest manner, does get it intimated that he wishes
you, in regard to him (unwilling to refuse you and
afraid to comply), to urge this suit no farther, perhaps
he may expect, when the dispute comes to be between

1734. BUNDLE'S CASE. 453

the endangering his interest or the giving up Bundle, that
your Lordship would not give Bundle the preference.'*

My Lord Chancellor said Sir Bobert Walpole had
very artfully brought this matter to a point where he
must be silent, but that he looked upon his honour to
be so much engaged for Bundle that his silence was no
sign of acquiescence.

This conversation passed between my Lord Chan-
cellor and Sir Bobert Walpole in the summer, and
was partly related to me by Sir Bobert himself and
partly by Bishop Hoadley, who had it from my Lord
Chancellor.

Many people (indeed most people) blamed Sir Bobert
for his compliance with the Bishop of London's unrea-
sonable objections on this occasion ; and said he would
one day or other repent consigning to the Bishop of
London that absolute authority which he now suffered
him to exercise in Church matters, and of which he
did not yet feel the inconveniences.

Sir Bobert excused himself by saying, whoever had
as much power as the Bishop of London would create
as much envy, and consequently excite as much clamour
against them ; and as for the Bishop of London's
stickling for Church power. Church discipline, and
Church tenets, he thought him in the right, since who-
ever would govern any class of men must appear to be
in their interest " And I would no more," said he,
" employ a man to govern and influence the clergy
who did not flatter the parsons, or who either talked,
wrote, or acted against their authority, their profit, or
their privileges, than I would try to govern the soldiery
by setting a General over them who was always ha-
ranguing against the inconveniences of a standing army.

454 LORD HERTETS MEMOIRS. Chap. XYUL

or than I would make a man Lord Chancellor who was
constantly complaining of the grievances of die law,
and threatening to rectify the abuses of Westminster
Hair

Notwithstanding the resolution Sir Robert Walpole
made and declared to everybody in the summer, of
keeping the bishopric of Gloucester vacant till this dis-
pute between the Lord Chancellor and the Bishop of
London could be adjusted, and one of them be brought
to temper and prevailed with to recede, he changed
his mind ; and the Bishop of London insisting on its
being filled up, and not with Bundle, Sir Bobert Wal-
pole went in form, about a month before the Parliament
was to meet, from the King to my Lord Chancellor, to
let him know how sorry his Majesty was that it was
impossible he could be gratified in Bundle's being made
a bishop ; but that the King, to show the regard he had
for my Lord Chancellor, was willing and ready to
prefer any other person whatever whom his Lordship
would nominate to that benefice.

My Lord Chancellor replied that he could not so far
abet the injustice done to the character of Bundle on
this occasion as to give his consent to Bundle's being
put by, and by naming another man seem tacitly at
least to admit that he had before named an improper
man; that he might be conquered by the Bishop of
London, but could not yield to him ; and must submit
to an absolute decision against his friend, but would
not, nor could not in honour, listen to any compromise.

Thus ended this conversation. Soon after Dr. Benson
was made Bishop of Gloucester, and Dr. Seeker Bishop
of Bristol — both of them learned and ingenious men,
of unexceptionable characters, and both of them for-

1734. KUNDLB'S CASE. 455

merly chaplains to my Lord Chancellor's father, the
late Bishop of Durham. This last circumstance was
thought to have been weighed in the choice of these
men, as a sugar-plum to put the taste of those bitters
out of my Lord Chancellor's mouth which they had
made him swallow by the rejection of Bundle ; and
the Irish bishopric of Deny, before mentioned, soon
after becoming vacant. Bundle was sent into that lucra-
tive episcopal exile.^'

18 In which he died in 1748, scarcely sixty yean old, hanng, we are
told, overcome, by his amiable qualities, the unpopularity of his nomination.
Swift celebrated Rundle's promotion in a copy of Terses, which Gilbert
VTakefield's anti-church prejudices thought " excellent," but I think nearly
the worst he ever wrote, and which, like Pope's praise of Rundle's heart,
bad no object but to insult the other bishops, the clergy, and the Ministry.
Indeed, the tone of this defence is a sufficient justification of Gibson's
objections, and aggravates the scandal of making a man a bishop in Ireland
because he was supposed not to be fit for one in England.

'* Make Bundle bishop I — fye— for shame I
An Arian to usurp that name I
Dare any of the mitred host
Confer on him the Holy Ghoat,
In Mother Church to breed a variance,
By coupling orthodox and Arians ? * *
Bundle a bishop I — well he may,
He 's still a Christian more ibm they.
We know the subject of their quarrels,
The man has learning, sense, and morals —
There is a reason still more weighty —
Tis granted he believes a Deity ;
Has every circumstance to please us,
Though fools may doubt his faith in Jesus ;
But why should he with that be loaded
Now twenty years from Court exploded ?
And is not this objection odd
From rogues who ne'er believed in God ?"

These were the dregs of Swift, and do no honour either to him or Bundle.
It b worth remarking that 8000/. was then omsidered a lucrative bishopric,
but Derry was returned to the Ecclesiastical Commission, in 1884, at above
14,000/. Lord Hervey's third son, Frederic, afterwards fourth Earl of
Bristol, held this see from 1768 to hb death in 1803.

456 LOKD HSRVSrS MEMOmS. Chap. XIX

CHAPTER XIX.

Household Offices — Duke of Richmond Master of the Horse ; Lord Pem-
broke Groom of the Stole ; Lord Godolphin's Pension and Peerage —
Characters of these two Lords — Ideal Marriage of the Prince of Wales —
Parliament meets — 30,000 Seamen voted — Reasons for and against — Sir
Joseph Jekyll — Marlborough Election — Miss Skerrett — Election Peti-
tion of the Scotch Peers — Debate in the Lords on the Troops — ^Walpole
resists the disposition of the King and Queen to War — Public Expenses
— ^Finance— Sinking Fund — ^Ministerial Changes— Messrs. Winnington
and Fox recommended by Lord Hervej — King*s Journey to HanoYcr
opposed by Walpole in vain — ^Madame de Walmoden — Strange confi-
dences to the Queen.

The new year was opened with an expedient which
put an end to the long contest * between the Duke of
Richmond and Lord Pembroke for the Mastership of
the Horse. The expedient was this: Lord Godolphin
having often told Sir Robert Walpole, his old and in-
timate friend, that the holding such an employment as
Groom of the Stole — to which so much attendance be-
longed, and to which he paid so litde — made him
extremely uneasy, and that there was another thing he
wanted to obtain as much as he wanted to get rid of
this, which was his peerage to be continued to the col-
lateral branch of his own femily of Godolphm,* Sir

1 It had apparently been in suspense since the preceding Midsommer
(antet p. 290), though, in fact, the Duke of Richmond had been fixed on,
but it was kept secret till Lord Pembroke could be satisfied.

s The second Earl of Godolphin had married the great Duke of Marl*
borough's eldest daughter, Henrietta, who succeeded to the Duke's titles
and estates ; but, having lost their only son, the Marlborough peerages would
pass to the Spencers, children of the Duke's second daughter, and the Go-
dolphin title would become extinct. Lord Godolphin was therefore anxious
to continue a peerage in his own fiimily, and accordingly was created, in

1736. . HOUSEHOLD OFFICES. 457

Robert Walpole took advantage of these sentiments to
propose to the King the making of Lord Pembroke
Groom of the Stole, and the Duke of Richmond Mas-
ter of the Horse, without letting the King know that
Lord Godolphin had a mind to quit, but proposing to
the King to buy his consent to this accommodation by
offering him the peerage to be entailed on his cousin,
Godolphin, after his death.

But there were two great difficulties attended the
gaining his Majesty's consent to this scheme : the one
was, that the King would be at no additional expense,
whilst Lord Godolphin, if he quitted, must have a pen-
sion ; the other was, that the King did not at all relish
the entailing a peerage on Mr. Godolphin, who had
married a daughter of Lady Portland, to whom both
the King and Queen bore a most irreconcilable hatred
for accepting the employment of governess to their
daughter in the late reign without their consent, at the
time they had been turned out of St James's, and the
education of their children, who were kept there, taken
from them.

Lord Godolphin*s salary as Groom of the Stole was
5000/. a-year ; and Lord Pembroke's, as Lord of the
Bedchamber, 1000?. Sir Robert Walpole, therefore,
prevailed with Lord Godolphin, in consideration of the
peerage which he had so much at heart, to accept of a
pension of 3000?. a-year, and Lord Pembroke to take
the key, with 3000?. more, which reduced the expense
of this jumble within the limited sum. When Sir
Robert Walpole had proceeded thus far in the negotia-

1735, Baron Helstone, with remainder to the heirs of his first-oousin,
Henry, Provost of Eton, whose son Francis dying without issue in 1785,
that peerage also became extinct.

458 LOBD HERVET'S MEUOIBS. Chap. XIX.

tion, he acquainted the King with what he had done,
who still boggled at giving the peer^e, and, not caring
to own the trae reason, said, there was a time that the
Lord Treasurer Godolphin had been as great a Jacob-
ite as any man in the kingdom,' and yet Sir Bobert
Walpole was now urging him to bestow this honour on
the heir of his odious family. Sir Bobert said it was
true, as the Lord Treasurer Grodolphin had been page
to King James the Second, he was suspected, whilst
his old master lived, to whom he had had so many and
so great obligations, to have a partiality towards him ;
but all that partiality had died with King James, and
that nobody had ever accused or suspected the late
Lord Godolphin of any attachment to his Son, the
present Pretender. Sir Bobert added to this plea tliat
of the present Lord Godolphin's firm, undoubted, and
uninterrupted attachment to his Majesty's family; and
said to the King, " /Sir, for my sake I beg your Mogesty
would grant this boon to Lord Godolphin^ and give me
leave to look upon it as a particular favour done to one
of the best friends I have in the worlds at my request.^

The King made answer, ^^ You are always teasing me
to do things that are disagreeable to me^ cmd for people
I dislike!" However, with much ado Sir Bobert got
his consent, thanked him for it, and did not leave him
time to repent; but, the moment he went out of the
closet, sent to all the three Lords to let them know
they might come the next morning to kiss the King's
hand, which accordingly they did — Duke of Bichmond
as Master of the Horse, Lord Pembroke as Groom of

3 Lord Godolphin had been not for deposing James, but for substituting
the Princess of Orange as regent — a scheme which would have excluded the
Hanover family.

1785. LORDS OODOLPHIN AND PEMBROKE. 459

the Stole, and Lord Godolphin for his Barony entailed
on his coosin-german.

Lord Godolphin was a very singular character^ for,
though he was a man of undoubted understanding and
strict honour, yet he passed his whole life witih people
who had neither. Natural modesty, indolence, and
laziness, made him exert himself but little in the great
and the busy world; and his chie^ if not his only
pleasures, being wine and running horses, he passed
almost all his time in low company, who could talk
sense in no character but that of jockeys ; and acted^
even in that character, as little like gentlemen as they
talked*

Lord Pembroke's character was a very different one;
not that he wanted sense, or that he was not very justly
esteemed a man of the nicest and strictest honour, but
he was quite illiterate ; whereas Lord Godolphin was
an extremely good scholar, and had a great deal of
knowledge : the one, too, was always in bad company,
whilst the other was always in the best ; and, as Lord
Pembroke, being much known, was generally esteemed
and had many friends, so the other, from the obsciu'ity
of his way of life, was so &r from having many friends,
that, out of the very narrow compass of his own low
acquaintance, he was hardly known to exist

The points that were expected to give the Adminis-
tration most trouble this year in Parliament were, an
address for the Prince's marriage and settlement, the
opposition to the augmentation of the land forces, and
the petition of the Scotch Peers. As to the first of
these, it was crushed by the Queen, who, authorized by
the King, told the Prince it was his Majesty's intention
to marry him forthwith ; and that, whoever the Prince

460 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chaf. XIX.

had a mind to make this alliance with, the King would
not only give his consent but his utmost assistance to
complete it In consequence of this declaration the
Queen talked publicly every day of the Prince's being
immediately to be married, though nobody could ever
learn to whom ; and bespoke her clothes for the wed-
ding, and sent perpetually to jewellers to get presents
for this ideal future Princess of Wales.

As to the affair of the Scoteh petition, it gave as
much trouble to the Opposition as to the courtiers : the
latter knowing how sore a place it was if it could be
laid open ; and the former, at the same time they were
sensible how much was expected from them by the world
on this head, being conscious, too, how little they were
able to answer those expectations when they came to
collect their materials, and found how weakly their
proofs would answer their charge/ The English Lords
in opposition had a great mind to drop the prosecution;
but the Scoteh Peers who were concerned in it, and
had lost both their employments and their seats in Par-
liament, insisted on being supported, or at least being
fought for. They said they did not understand the
equity of having been set in the front of the attack
upon the Administration, like the forlorn kope^ being
sacrificed for the sake of the Party, and then deserted
by those for whom they had been exposed. On the
other hand, the English Lords said in their defence
that they had lost their employments as well as the
Scoteh ; and that, for their seats in Parliament, if they
held those upon a different tenure, it was what the
Scotch knew before they embarked ; that what each of
them had to lose, they had both ventured and both lost ;

* See antCf p. 334, n. 27.

1735. ELECTION PETITION OP SCOTCH PEERS. 461

that if there was the least glimmering of daylight to be
seen from this prosecution, any advantage to be pro-
posed, or any success to be hoped for, they would gladly
pursue it to the utmost ; but, on the contrary, they said,
as their proofs were so deficient, so to bring this afiair
to a public trial would be matter of triumph rather
than annoyance to the common enemy, and contribute
more to the disgrace than the advantage of their com-
mon friends.

However, the Scotch Peers insisted and prevailed ;
but Lord Carteret, and Lord Winchelsea by his in-
fluence, refiised positively to take any other part in
pursuing this unfruitful affair, or to give any other
assistance, than their attendance and their votes ; and
accordingly they declined after this going to any of the
meetings previous to the bringing this affair before the
House of Lords ; nor did either of them, after it came
to that (as loquacious as they were on all other occa-
sions, both in public and private), open their lips in
support of the petition during the whole progress of its
presentation, suspense, and dismission.

Lord Carteret had more reasons than one for declin-
ing fighting on this ground. In the first place, he had
always in his eye the prospect of being himself in
power, and did not care for weaving fetters for his own
hands when he came to be possessed of that much-de-
sired post ; in the next, he was not very fond of being
enrolled as a lieutenant under my Lord Chesterfield,
who had long been looked upon as Commander-in-
Chief of this Scotch brigade.

Many people imagined that Lord Carteret's coolness
on this occasion proceeded from his being then secretly
negotiating his peace with the Court. When I in-

462 LORD HEBVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

quired of Sir Robert Walpole if there was any trnth in
this report) he asked me '^ if I thought him mad
enough ever to trust such a fellow as that on any con-
sideration, or on any promises or professions, within the
walls of St James's. I had some difficulty/' added he,
^^ to get him out ; but he shall find much more to get
in again." He told me, too, at the same time» that, to
his knowledge, Lord Carteret had opened two canals to
the Queen's ear, but that he hoped to prevent either
stream having water enough to turn his mill, thou^ he
knew one of them ran much stronger than Hie other.
The two people Sir Robert meant were Mrs. Clayton
and Bishop Sherlock, the last of whom he alluded to
when he spoke of the strongest interest He owned
this winter, too, to Lord Hervey, that his Lordship had
been in the right in what he had told him the year
before at Richmond relating to the Bishop pushing at
his interest; "but, my Lord," said he, "it is not on
the Bishop of London's account that he pushes at me —
it is Walpole, not Gibson, that he envies ; for his eyes
are not half so wistfully turned to Lambeth as they are
to St. James's, nor is it more his ambition to be at the
head of the Church than at the head of the State.***

ft Sir Robert could hardly have been aerioua in this statement
under some obstruction to his wishes, created by Sherlock's influence with
the Queen, he may have said testily that the bishop umed at being mmifr-
ter, but he could not have thought it Sherlock may have been busy and
ambitious at this period (aetat. 57), but was too sensible a man to dream
of being mnUter, His professional aspirings were noticed while he was
yet only Master of the Temple in the well-known epigram —
" As Sherlock at Temple was taking a boat,
The waterman ask'd him which way he would float ?
< Which way V says the Doctor, * why, fool, with the stream,*
To PauTs or to Lambeth ; 'tis all one to him."
He did reach St PauTs, but in 1747 he had, we are told, the moderation
and prudence to refuse Lambeth,

1735. SHERLOCK'S AMBITION. 463

Lord Hervey said he believed there were very few
things which the sanguine vanity of most people did not
bring them to think were attainable by their dexterity,
and not superior to their merit ; but that any man who
flattered himself this country was in a disposition to
bear a Parson-Minister must know very little of the
temper of the present generation.

It is certain, however, that Sherlock's interest at this
time with the Queen was strong enough to give some
trouble to Sir Robert, but still more to the Bishop of
London, who had disobliged many of the Whig clergy,
and saw himself every day more and more deserted by
the Tory clei^ that were running under the wing of
Sherlock and soliciting his protection.

Sherlock now and then, too, endeavoured to do Lord
Carteret service at Court, but hitherto without suc-
cess ; the manner in which the King and Queen this
winter spoke of him being not in the least softened, and
the " knave " and the " liar ** as often tacked to his name
as usual. The Queen, however, in speaking of him
and Lord Chesterfield, always gave him the preference.
She said Lord Carteret was a coquin dans le gravdy but
Chesterfield was a coquin dans le petit ; — that the last
was incapable of being a very useful servant to his
Prince if he would ; but that Lord Carteret had really
something in him, though he was not to be trusted.
She said Lord Carteret was like a candle that, if he
was well watched, could give one some light, but that
it was dangerous to trust the one as the other out of
one's sight; and that both were fiill as capable of firing
one's house if they were not taken care of^ as of being
useful if they were.

464 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XTX,

Lord Carteret and Lord Chesterfield were in some
things very much alike — in others very different : they
were both of them most abominably given iofabUj and
both of them often unnecessarily, and consequently indis-
creetly, so ; for whoever would lie usefiilly should lie
seldom : they both of them, too, treated all principles
of honesty and integrity with such open contempt, that
they seemed to think the appearance of those qualities
would be of as little use to them as the reality, which
must certainly be impolitic, since always to ridicule
those who are swayed by such principles was telling all
their acquaintance, ^' If you do not behave to me like
knaves, I shall either distrust you as hypocrites or laugh
at you as fools."

They had both of them good parts, but parts that
were of a very different style : Lord Carteret had a
much better public and Court understanding than Lord
Chesterfield, and Lord Chesterfield a much better pri-
vate and social understanding than Lord Carteret ; so
that this was as much superior to the other in the Se-
nate and the Cabinet as the other was superior to him
at table and in rueUes [ante^ p. 295].

When the Parliament met this winter the King
opened the Session \23rd January] with telling them
that the Powers at war had consented that England
and Holland should try what they could do towards
making a scheme of accommodation, and that accord-
ingly his Majesty and his good friends the States-
General were drawing a plan (every article of which
was a secret), which he rather wished than hoped might
prevent the opening of another campaign, and therefore
desired the Parliament would give him a great deal of

1785, VOTE OF SEAMEN. 465

money, a great many ships, and a great many troops,
in order to enable him to act roughly in case talking
mildly should prove to no purpose.

Pursuant to these hints from the Throne, thirty thou-
sand men were proposed this year in Parliament for the
sea service. Those in opposition said twenty thousand
were sufficient, and argued that there was no necessity
for voting a greater number this year than had been
granted the last ; that the Dutch had made no aug-
mentation either by sea or land this year ; and that, as
our interests were mutual in the present troubles, so, if
no augmentation was necessary for Holland, none could
be more necessary for England. It was ui^ed, too, that
as a war was chiefly to be avoided on account of the
detriment it would be to trade, so that reason ought to
operate against an increase of seamen, since the mer-
chants last year had complained grievously of the
scarcity of seamen, and consequently of the high wages
they were forced to pay them; and if this year ten
thousand more were to be employed, that inconve-
nience must be stronger felt, and make our merchants
trade under such a burden and such a disadvanti^e that
the Dutch would run away with all the profits of the
trade of Europe in almost as great a degree as they
would engross it in case we were engaged in a war without
them. It was said, too, that our naval armaments had
been the occasion of so great a fleet being fitted out by
France, and of that fleet being kept on the western shore
of France, within sight of our coasts, which otherwise
would have been sent to Dantzic. It was also strongly
insisted upon that the nation was in no condition to
bear additional expenses ; that if the fatal time should

VOL. I. 2 H

466 LORD HBRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chaf. XIX.

come when, to prevent the total subversion of the
balance of power in Europe, we should be necessitated
to take a part in this war, it did behove us not wantonly
before that time came to squander our treasure and im-
pair our strength, but to keep ourselves in reserve now,
and then exert to the utmost of our power. It was
likewise said that the King in his speech, and the Minis-
ters in debate, seemed to speak of the contending
Powers accepting our good offices as a thing of great
moment, and a promising circumstance; but if the
manner in which that acceptation was made by either
came to be scanned and set in a true light, that litde
was to be expected from it but a short amusement for
the winter, nor could any but transient and delusive
hopes of peace be built on such a foundation. The
manner in which France had accepted the good offices
of the Maritime Powers was nothing more than hy say-
ing she was ¥dlling to hear any proposals of accommo-
dation we could make, provided we kept ourselves in
such an absolute state of impartiality as enabled us to
bear the name of mediators. On the other hand, it
was true the Court of Vienna had accepted the good
offices, but with an absolute promise that the Emperor
was not by that acceptation to be exduded (in case this
proposal of accommodation did not succeed) from any
right he had by former treaties to receive the succours
therein stipulated, and already, in pursuance of those
treaties, by him claimed and demanded.

Those on the side of the Court who spoke for the
augmentation answered these objections in the following
manner : —

In the first place, with regard to no augmentation

1736. VOTE OF SEAMEN. 467

having been made by the Dutch since these troubles
began, it was said to be no true proposition; for
as thirty thousand men are reckoned by Holland a
sufficient standing force for the defence of that country
in time of peace, so their having fifty-two thousand men
now on foot must be reckoned as an augmentation on
account of the troubles, especially since everybody
knew that after the conclusion of the last Treaty of
Vienna the Dutch had determined to make a reduction
of twenty-two thousand men in two years — twelve the
first and ten the second ; and on the breaking out of
this war had changed that resolution.

It ought farther, too, the Court party said, to be
considered, that though Holland had made no augmen-
tation by sea, yet, as their natural defence was land-
forces, as ours was naval armaments, so no parallel ought
to be drawn between us and them with regard to an
augmentation by sea, but the comparison to be made
(if any) between what we were doing by sea and what
they actually had done by land.

As to the interests of England and Holland being
mutual on this occasion, as urged by those who opposed
this augmentation, it was undeniable that they were so;
but if two Powers, though in the same interest, were in
different circumstances, different measures must be
taken by them ; and if the English Parliament should
declare, or give it to be understood, that they would
consent to no step to be taken by England but what
was taken by Holland, it would be making the counsels
of England so dependent upon those in Holland, that,
if any foreign Power had any influence in the counsels
of Holland (which often happens in many States), such

2h2

468 LORD HBRYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

a declaration or intimation of the English Parliament
would be to assure that Power that, provided they could
gain Holland, they must govern England, and conse-
quently must tie up our hands as effectually as if Eng-
land had acceded to the Treaty of Neutrality.

As to the inconvenience the merchants suffered from
the scarcity of seamen, it was admitted to be an incon-
venience, but one which, for the foregoing reasons and
the present circumstances of Europe, was unavoidable,
and that, if the armaments of England were not strong
by sea, that trade would not only suffer inconveniences,
but would be entirely stopped ; for as the French and
Spanish fleets together did consist of between sixty and
seventy ships of the line-of-battle, that is, from 50
to 80 guns, — so, if England had not a naval force
ready to make head against such a power, that we must
give up the empire of the seas, as well as the balance
of power by land, and of course our trade would not
only be inconvenienced, but become entirely preca-
rious.

As to our naval armaments last year having been the
occasion of those made by France, it was false in feet,
those maritime preparations having been made by
France, and their fleet fitted out, before ours was or-
dered or our seamen were voted ; and if the consequence
of our fleet being fitted out was the prevention of the
French fleet leaving the coast of France and sailing to
the north, it was a consequence rather to be rejoiced at
than regretted, unless any one thought it for the interest
of Europe that France should have been as successfiil
at Dantzic as at Philipsburg or in Italy, and that
she would be more inclined to peace from having made

1735. THIRTY THOUSAND SEAMEN VOTED. 469

greater acquisitions by war, and having nothing but
what she was already possessed of to expect from treaty
and negotiation.

As to what was said of the little satisfaction it could
be to anybody to hear of the good oflSces being accepted
by the contending Powers because no plan of accom-
modation was very likely to succeed, it was answered
that the King himself had in his speech acknowledged
the uncertainty there was of success in a negotiation
where so many jarring pretensions were to be satisfied
and so many conflicting interests to be adjusted ; but
that it was still reasonable, since a general accommoda-
tion was so much to be wished, that people should have
some satisfaction in the first step to that desirable end
being on all sides submitted to.

It was said, too, by those who argued on this side of
the question, that as, in consequence of the vote of confix
dence of last year, there were now twenty-eight thou-
sand seamen actually in pay, so the voting only twenty
thousand this year was in reality not only voting against
an augmentation, but for an actual and immediate
reduction of eight thousand men ; and whether in the
present conjuncture any reduction of seamen was a
proper measure to be taken, was submitted to the con-
sideration of every man in the kingdom, within doors
and without

At last, after a very long debate l7th February]^ the
question was put, and thirty thousand seamen were
voted by 256 against 183.

On the question for the army there was little more said
in the House of Commons than a recapitulation gf the

470 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chaf. XIX.

same things that had been thrown out in the debate upon
the navy; but though the debate on the laDd-fbrces
was much colder than that on the fleets the minority
was much stronger; the question on the estimate for
twenty-five thousand men for the land-service of this
year being carried only by 261 i^ainst 208. The only
public poiut^ besides these I have already mentioned,
that was much contested in the House of Commons this
session, was the treaty between the Kings of En^and
and Denmark, by which the latter, in consideration of a
subsidy of 80,000t a-year, obliged himself to furnish the
former with six thousand men, in case England entered
into the war. The old story of the Hessians was
revived on this occasion, and the beaten topic of lavish
treaty-making ministers again displayed and laboured
However, this subsidy was at last provided for, as well
as every other money demand made by the Court ; and
the measure in general, considering the present situation
of Europe, was not thought improper or unreasonable ;
since, the south being so much in the power of die Triple
Alliance, it was judged not impolitic to keep aa many
of the Princes of the north as we could in another in-
terest, and not leave the Czarina alone in her opposition
to the encroachments of France and support of the
cause of the House of Austria.

But whilst these State points in the House of Com-
mons went — though contested, yet at last all of them —
according to the desire of the Court, it was not so with
the election [petitions], the Court not getting above two
Members this session upon the balance of that account ;
and losing several questions on these points that were

17S5. HAKLBOKOUQH ELECnOK. 471

most industriously solicited, warmly debated, and stre-
nuously pushed. That which made the defeat of the
Court and the triumph of the Opposition more remark-
able on these occasions was, that most of these disgraces
happened at the bar of the House,* and on the debates,
that lasted not only several days, but till nine, ten, and
eleven o'clock at night The King, who could never
bear with common patience the loss of any question he
had a mind to carry, was as much out of humour upon
every disappointment of this kind as he could have
been on the most important defeat; and the Queen,
who liked disappointment in what she had once pro-
posed as little as her consort, though she concealed her
mortifications better, was thoroughly dissatisfied, and
in private let some expressions escape her which be-
trayed her being so ; and even Sir Bobert, which was
very rare, did not escape without receiving some tokens
of her dissatisfaction, saying that Sir Robert Walpole
^^ either neglected these things, and judged ill enough
to think they were trifles, though in Government, and
especially in this country, nothing was a trifle ; or per-
haps," says she, ^^ there is some management I know
nothing of, or some circumstances we none of us are
acquainted with ; but, whatever it is, to me these things
seem very ill conducted/*

The Marlborough election, though strongly solicited,
heard at the bar, and made a point of by the Court,
went against the Court, in a very odd manner, and

>

« Election peUtions were then treated avowedly as mere party questions,
and the more important cases were heard at the bear qf the House. A
division on the Chippenham election petition in 1742 was the final blow to
Wal pole's administration.

472 LORD HERVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XDL

without a division. Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of
the Rolls, who spoke against the Court at twelve o*clock
at nighty after a hearing and debate of two days^ was
the occasion of the Court at last giving it up ; he started
a point of law, on which he said the whole turned^ and
threw out a defiance to any man who understood the
law to contradict him. All the lawyers on the side of
the Court were mute ; upon which Mr. Felham pressed
Sir Robert Walpole (who yielded to him) not to stand
a division ; and, as the Attorney and Solicitor Gene-
ral/ who did not open their mouths to contradict die
Master of l^e Rolls that night, declared some days
after, on examination of their books, that the Master
was wrong in his point of law, they caused great con*
fusion and many disputes and complaints among the
Court party: everybody blamed the Attorney and
Solicitor for their ignorance in not being able to answer
the Master on the spot, and for dieir imprudence, since
they had not done it then, for showing afterwards that
they might have done it, and for proving the situation
of tiiis case to have been like one mentioned in Livy,
when he says, " Non defuit quid responderetur sed
deerat qui responstmi daret ;*' — " that there was wanting
not a response, but a respondent."

The bulk of the Court party in the House of Com-
mons, even whilst they thought they were in the wrong
in the point of law, were extremely angry that they
were not allowed, by a division, to show their zeal
against law, which seldom had any weight in the de-
cision of elections : when they heard the law was with

^ Sir John Willes and Sir Dudley Ryder, both afterwards Chief Justices,
the first of the Common Pleas, the latter of the King's Bench.

1735. SIB JOSEPH JEKYLL. 473

them, or at least doubtfiil, they were outrageous. Sir
Robert Walpole was angry with Mr. Pelham, whose
timidity and affectation of popularity, he said, ever
made him in a hurry to drop his friends and cajole his
enemies. The Queen, who (at the solicitation of Lord
and Lady Hertford,^ the first one of the Captains of the
Horse Guard to the King, the other one of her Ladies
of the Bedchamber) had pressed extremely the carrying
this election, was very much out of humour when first
it miscarried, but more so when she learned in what
manner it had been lost. She was displeased with Sir
Robert, more so with Mr. Pelham, and most of all with
the Master of the Rolls,* whom she was always cajoling,
always abusing, always hoping to manage, and always
finding she was deceived in. He was an impracticable
old fellow of four score, with no great natural perspi-
cuity of understanding, and had, instead of enlighten-
ing that natural cloud, only gilded it with knowledge,

8 I cannot reconcile Lord Hervey's statement with that of the Journals^
where it appears that there was a division, 176 to 172 in favour of the
sitting members, one at least of whom, Mr, Seymour, would seem to have
been the friend of Lord Hertford ; and the tellers for the minority were
certainly strong anti-courtiers.

* Pope ironically permits to a courtier satirist

'* A horse laugh, if you please, on honesty ;
A joke on Jekyll, or some odd old Whig
Who never changed his principles or wig."
To which he adds this note : —

** Sir Joseph Jekyll, a true Whig in his principles, and a man of the
utmost probity. He sometimes voted against the Court, which drew upon
him the laugh here described of oirs who bestowed it equally on religion
and honesty."

None of Pope's annotators attempt to explain this passage. I believe
the " ONB " means Queen Caroline, both from the mode of printing the
word, and because Lord Hervey (the only other person, I think, that
could have been meant) is three or four times distinctly pointed out by
name and nickname in the same poem, and would not have been spared in
the note.

474 LORD HERVET'S MSMOIBS. Chap. XIX.

reading, and learning, and made it more shining, bat
not less thick : study had made many doubts occur,
and solved none ; and the desire of appearing in the
right, more than the desire of being so, forced him often
in Parliament to balance in points where vanity wore
the appearance of int^rity, and where the bias of popu-
larity drew him against the Court without any other
weight to incline him to that side. He was always
puzzled and conAised in his apprehension of things,
more so in forming an opinion upon them, and mo6t of
all in his expression and manner of delivering that
opinion when it was formed ; so that his brain, from a
very uncommon formation, was, in conceiving senti-
ments and forming judgments, like some women, who,
instead of plain, natural, and profitable births, are for
ever subject to false conceptions and miscarriages, or,
if they go out their time, bring a dead ofispring or a
child turned the wrong way. His principal topics for
declamation in the House were generally economy and
liberty ; and, though no individual in the House ever
spoke of him with esteem or respect, but rather with a
degree of contempt and ridicule, yet, &om his age, and
the constant profession of having the public good at
heart beyond any other point of view, he had worked
himself into such a degree of credit with the accumu-
lated body that he certainly spoke with more general
weight, though with less particular approbation, than
any other single man in that assembly : and as some
people who speak in public, though they have no great
respect for the particular people who compose their
audience, feel, notwithstanding, an awe for them in their
a^regate capacity, so he, without being esteemed by

1735. HISS SKERKETT. 475

particulars, had the reverence of the corporate body
which those particulars composed.

The balance of the Marlborough election was turned,
as well as many other points, merely by his weight
being thrown into the anti-Court scale. And there
was one odd circumstance that made the Queen think
this affair of much more importance, and more mortify-
ing to Sir Robert Walpole, than it really was ; for,
after Sir Bobert, the next day, had been giving her an
account of it, Lord Hervey happening to be with her
that evening, she told him she never saw anything so
managed as this business had been, nor Sir Bobert Wal-
pole ever so much struck and cast down on any occasion
in her life : ** He has just been here," said she, " and
appeared quite confounded and moped, had neither life
nor spirit, and seemed more shocked (which you know
he is not apt to be) than I ever saw any man, and even
more than he was at the bustle of the Excise." Lord
Hervey, who knew that nothing was so likely to bring
Sir Bobert into diflSculty in the palace as being thought
to feel himself in any out of it, told her Majesty
that he believed she had misconstrued Sir Bobert's
confusion, and imputed it to a cause very different from
that which had really occasioned it ; and llien told her
Majesty that his mistress, Miss Skerrett, was extremely
ill of a pleuritic fever, in great danger, and that Sir
Bobert was in the utmost anxiety and affliction for her.

The Queen^ who was much less concerned about his
private afflictions than his ministerial difficulties, was
glad to hear his embarrassment thus accounted for,
and began to talk on Sir Bobert's attachment to this
woman, asking Lord Hervey many questions about

476 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

Miss Skerrett's beauty and understanding^ and his fond-
ness and weakness towards her.^** She said she was very
glad he had any amusement for his leisure hours, but
could neither comprehend how a man could be very
fond of a woman who was only attached to him for his
money, nor ever imagine how any woman would suffer
him as a lover from any consideration or inducement
but his money. " She must be a clever gentlewoman,"
continued the Queen, " to have made him believe she
cares for him on any other score ; and to show you
what fools we all are in some point or other, she has
certainly told him some fine story or other of her love
and her passion, and that poor man — avec ce gros carpSj
ces jamhes enjldes^ et ce vilain ventre — believes her.
Ah ! what is human nature ! " While she was saying
this, she little reflected in what degree she herself pos-
sessed all the impediments and antidotes to love she
had been enumerating, and that ^^ Ah 1 what is human
nature T was as applicable to her own blindness as to his.
However, her manner of speaking of Sir Robert on
this occasion showed at least that he was not just at
this time in the same rank of favour with her that he
used to be ; for though she might not always before
have been blind to these defects and these weak-
nesses, at least she had been so indulgent to them as
to have been always dumb upon that chapter, and to
let these things escape her communicated reflections, if
they had not escaped her private observation.

10 This passage satisfies me that the original annotator of Lady Maiy
W. Montagu, as well as Lord Vl^hamcUfie, who followed him, were mis-
taken in describing Miss Skerrett as one of the Queen's maids of honour.
See ante, p. ] 15.

1786. BLBCnON PETITION OF SCOTCH PEERS. 477

The petition of the Scotch Peers, which had been
so long expected, and often said to be dropped,
was at last [on the 13tk February'] presented by the
Duke of Bedford, and conceived in the following
terms : —

"To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, &c.

" The humble petition of James Duke of Hamilton and
Brandon, Charles Duke of Queensberry and Dover, James
Duke of Montrose, Thomas Earl of Dundonald, Alexander
Earl of Marchmont, and John Earl of Stair, sheweth

" That at the last election of sixteen peers to serve in the
present Parliament for that part of Great Britain called Scot-
land, the majority of votes was obtained for the Duke of Buc-
cleuch, &c.— who were returned accordingly.

" Your petitioners, however, conceive it their duty to repre-
sent to your Lordships, that several undue methods and illegal
practices were used towards carrying on this election, and to-
wards engaging Peers to vote for a list of Peers to represent
the Peerage of Scotland, such as are inconsistent with the
freedom of Parliaments, dishonourable to the Peerage, con-
trary to the design and intention of those laws that direct the
election of sixteen Peers for that part of Great Britain called
Scotland, and such as may prove subversive of our happy con-
stitution ; instances and proofs whereof we are able to lay before
your Lordships in such manner as your Lordships shall direct.

" Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that your Lord-
ships will be pleased to take this important afiair mto your
most serious consideration, to allow those instances and proofs
to be laid before you, and to do therein as in your great
wisdoms shall seem most proper to maintain the dignity of the
Peerage and the freedom of the election of the Peers for that
part of Great Britain called Scotland, and to preserve the con-
stitution and independency of Parliaments."

As soon as this petition had been read, the Duke of
Bedford moved the House, that the petitioners should

478 LOUD HERVErS HEHOIBS. Chap. XES.

be appointed to prove the allegations of it that day
month*

This motion was opposed by the Lord Chancellor,
who said the House was not ripe for such a resolution,
and moved that the petition might be taken into consi*
deration on that day se'nnight, which after a short de-
bate was agreed to without a division.

When the day for taking the petition into considera-
tion [20th February] was come, Lord Hardwicke, after
a very long, well-studied, and well-digested speech,
moved the House to order the Lords petitioners to
declare whether they meant by this petition to con-
trovert the seats of the sixteen sitting Lords ; to which
the Duke of Bedford answered by pulling a paper out
of his pocket and reading it to the House, the purport
of which was to acquaint the House that he was em-
powered by the Lords petitioners to declare they did
not mean to dispute the seats of the sitting sixteen^ nor
any one of them.

It was said that the House could not, consistently
with its usual and proper forms, receive this oral deda-
ration of the Duke of Bedford as authentic, though
every one Lord was far from doubting his having fiill
authority for what he had said. But as the petition
was in writing, and signed, so any explanation of it must
come the same way. The further consideration there-
fore of this afiair was adjourned to the next day fon
a division of 90 to 51], and the Lord Chancellor
was ordered in the mean time to write to the Lords
petitioners for this explanation, to be given in to the
House in the proper form, which waa in writing, and
signed.

1735. ELECTION PETITION OF SCOTCH PEERS. 479

The next day the petitioners sent this declaration of
not contesting the seats of the sixteen, nor any one of
them, in the form prescribed.

Then the Duke of Devonshire moved the House
that the Lords petitioners might be directed to lay
before the House the instances of those undue methods
and illegal practices complained of in their petition^ and
the nam£s of those persons by whom they had been praC"

There was a long debate on this question; those
against the question representing the diJBSculties under
which it would put the Lords petitioners ; and those
who supported the question saying it was inconsistent
with all natural justice and the practice of all courts of
justice whatsoever (except the Inquisition) to hear a
cause expartCy and to suffer evidence to be brought
against any person in a criminal prosecution without
that person having notice of such accusation, and being
allowed, at the same time diat evidence was brought to
accuse him, to bring evidence likewise for his defence.

The question was at last carried by a great majority
[90 to 48].

The answer of the Lords petitioners was very long
and evasive ; naming but one fact, which was that of
the regiment ^^ being drawn out on the day of election,
and without naming one person. The reason they
gave for their non-compliance with the orders was the

11 ** That on the day of election a battalion of HalPs forces was drawn
up in the Abbey court of Edinburgh, and three companies of it were
inarched from Leith (a place one mile distant) to join the rest of the bat-
talion, and kept under arms from nine in the morning to nine at night,
without any cause or occasion that your petitioners could foresee other than
the overawing the election." — HUt. Reg, 1736, 116.

480 LORD HERYEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

impossibility of complying without becoming accusers,
which they declared they never designed to be.

Upon this answer being read, Lord Cholmondeley
moved the House to come to the following resolu*
tion : That the petitioners have not complied with the
order of this House^ hy which they were directed to name
the facta of which they complained, and hy whom those
facta were committed.

There was a debate on this question, but it passed at
last by a great majority [90 to 47].

The moment after this division Lord Hervey got
up and made a speech" and motion that " the petition
he dismissed"

Accordingly the petition was dismissed ; and in this
manner ended an affair that was grown at last almost
as troublesome to those who prosecuted it as it had been
at first to those whom it was undertaken to distress ;
the people in opposition being divided in their opinions
and sentiments upon it, and the scent lying very cold
by which they were to trace the Administration through
the dirty roads that lead to Scotch elections, but where
it was as hard to follow them as it would be for strangers
to pursue any of the inhabitants of that charming coun-
try into their own Highlands.

The King and Queen acted on this occasion as their
custom was on many others — ^that is, by treating the
danger of this ruffle, after it was over, with a sort of
Falstaff bravery, and pretending always to have despised
the kindling of this flame as much as they now did

IS Which I insert at length [in the Appendix], to illustrate the whole
progress of this afiair from commencement of it to its determination. — Lobd
Hkbybt.

1786. DEBATE ON THE ARMY. 481

its ashes ; but of the apprehensions they were in whilst
this business was depending I was often both an eye
and ear witness, though they spoke of it afterward even
to me in a way that looked as if they imagined my
memory must be as bad as they wished it, and that it
was as impossible for me to reflect on what I had seen and
heard as it would have been impolitic and impolite to
have mentioned it ; or perhaps they did in this occurrence
what princes are very apt to do, which is, concluding
those courtiers who are politically dumb to be naturally
deaf and blind : yet in the morning before this petition
was to be presented, the Queen was so anxious to know
what was said, thought, done, or expected on this occa-
sion, that she sent for Lord Hervey whilst she was in
bed ; and because it was contrary to the queenly eti-
quette to admit a man to her bedside whilst she was in
it, she kept him talking on one side of the door which
opened just upon her bed whilst she conversed with him
on the other for two hours together, and then sent him to
the King's side'* to repeat to his Majesty all he had re-
lated to her.

When the question of the troops came to be debated
in the House of Lords [I3th March\ the objections
made to this augmentation were much the same, in all
the strong parts of them, as those that had been urged
in the House of Commons. Lord Straflbrd," a loqua-
cious, rich, illiterate, cold, tedious, constant haranguer

18 The King's or Queen's separate apartments were called the Exng*8 or
Qfi«en'«*'8n>B."

14 Thomas Wentworth, first Lord Strafibrd of the second creation. He
had been ambassador to Russia and Holland, and was one of the plenipo-
tentiaries at the Treaty of Utrecht. He died in 1739.

VOL. L 2 I

482 LORD HERVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

in the House of Lords, who neither spoke sense nor
English, and always gave an anniversary declamation
on this subject, went upon the trite topic of tie danger
of standing armies to a free state, and knew as little
how to adapt his arguments to the particular circum-
stances, or the times, or the particular temper of his
audience, as he did how to give a proper pronunciation
to the few words he was master of, or proper words to
the few things that came within the narrow limits of
his Lordship's knowledge : in short, there was nothing
so low as his dialect except his understanding, nor any-
thing so tiresome as his public harangues except his
private conversations. There was but one Ciceronian
quality (vanity excepted) which I ever discovered in this
orator, and Aat was, that the one did not oftener weave
into his orations the history of his consulship and Cati-
line's conspiracy, than the other introduced some
account of his embassy in Holland at the time of the
Treaty of Utrecht, when he had the double honour of
being a very dirty executor of a very dirty errand.

The motion for altering the number of forces for
the service of this year from twenty-five thousand to
eighteen thousand men was made by this ingenious Lord
— digna causa meliore puero ; nor did the cause want
good advocates though it had no better a propounder,
for Lord Carteret and Lord Chesterfield spoke excel-
lently well in support of this question ; and though they
only made use of arguments that had already been
urged in the House of Commons, yet the one advanced
them with so much strength, knowledge, and eloquence,
the other with so much wit, satire, and ingenuity, and
both with so much applause and popularity, that each

1736. DEBATE ON THE ARMY. 483

of them in their different style, even without that great
chann of novelty, gained credit, and spoke almost as
much to the satisfaction of their audience on this occa-
sion as they ever did on all occasions to their own.

I wish I had copies of their speeches to insert here ;"
but as I have not, I can only give [in the Appendix]
what was said in answer to them by Lord Hervey, who
closed the debate.

After this, the question was put and the greater
number of forces voted by a majority of two, yet I can-
not help confessing that a more unreasonable vote, in
my humble opinion, was never passed — as that short
argument of these troops being too many if England
was not to be engaged in the war, and too few if she
was, seems to me unanswerable ; I am sure at least it
was unanswered.**

But the true reason for taking this measure was, that
Sir Robert Walpole, who would willingly have spared
himself both the unpopularity of keeping up so large a
body of forces, and the trouble of finding money to de-
fray so great and unnecessary an expense, was obliged
to give in to this measure in order to flatter the military
genius of the King, who was always as insatiably covet-
ous of troops as money, thought he could never have
enough of either, and could seldom be prevailed with

ift la the ' Parliamentary History ' the several speeches are lumped to-
gether into one argument on each side.

1* Lord Henrey is here unjust to his own side : common sense points out
that an amount of force not equal to all the exigendes of eventual hostilities
might yet be a very cogent argument towards the preservation of peace,
and a very important preparative for war. But Lord Hervey thus dis-
parages his own success, either from his own hereditanf antipathy to
standing armies, or in compliance with Sir R. Walpole*s pacific policy, or
perhaps from the motive stated ante^ p. 301, n. 3.

2l2

484 LOBD UEKVEV'S MEMOIRS. Chap. SX.

to part with either, though he had more of both than he
had any occasion to employ, or any use for farther tiian
to review the one and count the other ; and as his Ma-
jesty was vehemently for taking a part in this war, his
Minister had no way of keeping him out of it but by
this composition, which was the putting the means of
war into his hands at the same time that he tied them
up jfrom using them, and giving his Majesty the satis-
faction of brandishing a sword in the scabbard which
he would not permit him to draw.

In this manner was this great and able statesman
often obliged to purchase great points by yielding in
small ones, and of coiu'se incurred the imputation of
acting injudiciously in things which, abstractedly con-
sidered, he certainly could not justify, but, weighed with
their connection to other matters which he could not
have brought about but upon these conditions^ were so
far from being any reflection on his conduct, that they
were proofe of his skill ; and if men may now and then
be allowed in policy to deviate a little from that in-
junction in the Gospel of not doing evil that good may
come of it, there was hardly any measure ever taken
with regard to the army (excepting that number of
troops raised by his timidity the election-year) which I
do not think I could account for without Sir Bobert
Walpole*s being really to blame.

There was one negative circumstance which favoured
his endeavours to prevent the King and Queen involv-
ing England this year in the war which I must not
omit to relate, and that was M, Hatolf's being so ill
all winter that he could not once come to the Queen to
blow that militant flame in her Majesty which Sir E^

^735. PUBLIC CHARGES. 485

bert, with all the political buckets he was continually
throwing upon it, could never quite extinguish, though
he kept it from blazing out in the vehement manner she
wished to let it rage.

The expenses for the current service of this year, even
without going into the war, were very great, amounting
to no less than 3,250,000/. :—

Land-tax at 2*. in the pound . . £1,000,000

The Sinking Fund . . • 1,000,000

Malt-tax 750,000

Borrowed on the salt-duty . 500,000

.£3,250,000

Which sum, added to 2,000,000/. that went to the pay-
ment of the interest of the National Debt, and including
also the revenue of the King's Civil List, reckoned at
but 800,000/., together with 1,500,000/. at least raised
by the poor's tax, makes 7,550,000/." which was raised
this year by this poor, indigent, undone nation (as I
hear it every day called) for the annual services. Not
that I would be thought by what I am saying to ap-
prove tie conduct of those who make this country in
time of peace pay these vast sums for its annual sup-
port, any more than I do the nonsense of those either
ignorant or hypocritical lamenters who talk of our being

" Current Service

. £8,260,000

Interest of National Debt

2,000,000

Civil Lirt . . .

800,000

Poor's Tax

1,600,000

£7,660,000.— Lonl Hervey.
Lord Hervey*s mode of stating this account is not precisely accurate,
and be confuses a little the Supply and the Ways and Means ; but the result
is substantially correct : the Supply was 8,160,462/.

486 LORD HKRVEY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

ruined : I think the practice of the one as false policy
as I think the assertions of the other false theory ; for
if this country in all its prosperity, and after five-and-
twenty years* peace, is but two millions in fifty less in
debt than it was at the determination of Queen Anne s
war, I cannot but acknowledge that to my weak under-
standing the economy of the Government in its domestic
calling does not seem to me to have been very laudably
exercised; nor do I at all approve the situation which,
according to this way of acting (if continued), this na-
tion must ever be in, and that is, that in time of war its
debts are always to be increased, and in time of peace
never to be lessened.

To look, therefore, upon the situation of England at
present in a true light, at least as I conceive its situa-
tion to be, and to reduce it to the parallel circumstances
of a single private person (which kind of familiar in-
stances tend always to illustrate these sort of cases), I
consider England in its present circumstances not in
the least as a necessitous bankrupt who has neither
money enough to pay his creditors nor to provide for
his own subsistence, as it is represented by the igno-
rant, the irritating, and the clamorous, to serve private
ends and gratify personal pique — ^but I look upon Eng-
land at present as a man in vast affluence, who inherits
and po&sesses a large estate chargeable with a great debt,
and tenant for life only in that estate, without a power to
raise more money, or very little more, upon it llian that
with which it already stands charged ; and though this
estate yields him a produce sufficient to pay the interest
of that debt, and to live in great ease, ms^ificence,
credit, and expense at the same time, yet, as his con-

1785. FINANCIAL STATE ILLUSTRATED. 487

stant way of living calls for the whole surplus of his
revenue after the interest of the debt is paid, so, in case
of any exigence or contingent call for any sum of money,
I look upon him under an absolute incapacity of pro-
viding for such wants without either retrenching his
former expenses in some article, or making himself ex-
tremely uneasy as long as he lives ; and as it is iuU as
improbable that any country should for ever be in a
condition that will not call for greater expenses than are
necessary in a state of profound peace as it is to sup-
pose that many generations should follow one another
without some demands upon their estates of the nature
of those I have enumerated, so I hold it to be very bad
economy and the highest imprudence for any govern-
ment to persist in keeping up its expenses to the full
stretch of its purse in those seasons when it ought to be
discharging the debts contracted by former extrava-
gances, and providing for the charge of future necessities.
Yet this imprudence is indisputably our case at present,
since, as far as I am master of the state of our debts
and expenses of our annual disbursements, and our
power to augment the revenue, I do not see how it
would be possible, on any exigence, or for the support
of the most necessary war, for England to raise above
1,000,000/. a-year more than it now raises," which
would be by increasing the land-tax from 2^. to 4^. in
the poimd.

And there is one circumstance that reflects very

18 What would my ftither have sud had he lived to these days, 1777,
and seen seventeen mUHom raised in a year ? — Note by the third Earl,

What would either have said to our raising for 1846, a year of peace,
Jifty 'three miUUms f

488 LORD HBRVETS MEMOIRS. Chaf. XTX.

strongly on the economy of our present govemops^
which, as I am determined to give my opinion impar-
tially on every subject treated in these papers, I will
not pass over in silence ; and that is, that the nation
now annually pays more for llie current service of
the year, without being engaged in the present war,
than it did during the first two or tiiree years when it
was a principal in King William*s and Queen Anne's
wars.

I, therefore, am far firom justifying i^e prudential
part of taking the Sinking Fund for the current service
in the manner it has lately been done, though I have,
both in public and private, justified the legality of it.

The public has certainly a right to dispose of those
surpluses called the Sinking Fund, after the interest
of the national debt is paid, in what manner the public
thinks fit, as those surpluses are, by the words of the
Acts of Parliament which constitute the contract between
the public and the creditors of the public, absolutely
and explicitly reserved for the fixture disposition of Pai>
liament ; and when the clause in one of those Acts,
called the General Fund Act, does dispose of these sur-
pluses as fast as they arise for the payment of part of
the principal of the national debts incurred before the
year 1716, it is very evident that the Parliament in
that case acts as a steward for the public, and not as a
contractor for the public ; that its acts are consequently
only declaratory and prudential for itself not obligatory
and binding upon future Parliaments; and can no
more be construed to tie down fiiture Parliaments than
any other Act made by Parliament, which is merely
discretionary, not bargaining, and consequently revoc-

1786. VACANT OFFICES.

able, alterable, and rescindable by any future Parlia-
ment"

At the end of this Session of Parliament the Scrip-
ture parable was reversed; for the harvest of Court
favours was small and the labourers were many, there
being many Lords and Commoners who were very de-
sirous to reap those favours, and but two employments
to be disposed of — that of Privy Seal, vacated by the
resignation of Lord Lonsdale, and that of Secretary-at-
War, that became void by the dismission of Sir WiUiam
Strickland, who had already kept the office above a
year longer than he was capable of doing the duty of it,
and was now become so weak in mind as well as body,
that his head was as much in its second infancy as his
limbs-*^

Lord Lonsdale,** when he resigned the Privy Seal,
declared, not only to the King but to everybody else,
that he quitted from no personal disgust either to his
Master or his Ministers, nor any disapprobation either
of their foreign or domestic measures ; but merely on
account of his health and his natural love for retirement,
both which made him equally unfit for living in town
or about a Court He was a speculative, splenetic,
honest man, who always wanted to make practice tally
with theory, and, as he was out of humoiu* with the
world when he could not, I need not add that he was
seldom pleased ; and, as melancholy people who study

19 See Lord Carteret's and Lord Herrey's speeches on the Sinking
Fund. — Note by Lord Hervey.

so The fourth baronet. He died Ist September, 1735, shortly after his
resignation, at the age, the Baronetage says, of only forty-nine.

SI See aniCy p. 228, Horace Walpole's character of him.

490 LOBB HERVET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX

books of physic and anatomy are apt to fancy they have
every distemper they read of, and that their own body,
from the delicacy of its texture, is in danger of falling
to pieces every time they stir a leg or an arm, so this
theoretic Lord, from a natural gloom in his temper
that made him see everything in a much deeper shade
than cheerful eyes would ever have beheld them, in
ruminating on the corruption of the present times, and
the disaffection of the nation to the present Boyal
Family, used to foresee nothing but tumults, seditions,
insurrections, rebellions, revolutions ; and would often
say to those who were in his confidence, that, as it was
impossible for things long to hold together upon the
foot they now were, and that approaching confusion
must soon be the lot of his poor unfortunate country,
so he desired to retire out of a world which he was
unable to mend, unfit to bustle in, and unwilling to see
torn to pieces ; adding, on these occasions, that England
was brought to the dilemma of being undone by the
expenses of war, if it took that part ; or by the turbu-
lence of faction, luxury, and corruption, if it remained
in the inactivity of peace. These reflections, he said,
joined to very ill health, made him so unhappy whilst
he remained a near spectator of these impending mis-
fortunes, that he was determined to go abroad, in order
to mend the one and to remove the disagreeable pros-
pect of the other, and, accordingly, €oon after he went
into the south of France. His brother,** too, who very

M The Honourable Anthony Lowther, younger brother of Lord Lons-
dale (whom he predeceased), a commissioner of Irish revenue, and a man
of fashionable celebrity in his day. The Monimia and Philodes of Lord
Hervey's poetical epistle were the unfortunate Sophia Howe, maid of
honour to the Princess, and Anthony — or, as he was fiimiliariy called, Nanty
— Lowther.

1786. VACANT OFFICES. 491

unreasonably thought his merit superior to an employ-
ment of lOOOZ. a-year in Ireland, and for that reason
quitted it, contributed to strengthen these opinions,
hoping that his brother's dislike of things would grow
into a dislike of persons, and that he should blow him
up to be an enemy to those whom his own vanity had
induced him to think had not been enough bis friends.

Lord Lonsdale's employment was given immediately
to Lord Godolphin — not from a desire in the King to
show him favour, but from a principle of economy ; for
by this means the King saved a pension of 3000/. a-
year, which Lord Godolphin had enjoyed ever since he
quitted the employment of Groom of the Stole.

Sir William Yonge was made Secretary-at-War,
which left a vacancy in the Treasury. Lord Hervey
pressed Sir Robert Walpole extremely to put his friend
Mr. Winnington*' into this vacancy, which would have

ss Thomas Winnington, successively a Lord of the Admiralty and Trea-
sury-Cofferer, and lastly Paymaster, in which, on his death in 1746, he
was succeeded by Mr. Pitt. He was very clever, and very amiable, though
versatile and inconsistent in politics. Horace Walpole, in a letter of 25th
April, 1746, announcing his death, says of him — ** He was one of the first
men in England from his parts and his employment. I was familiarly
acquainted with him ; loved and admired him, for he had great good nature,
and a quickness of wit most peculiar to himself; and, for his public talents,
he has left nobody equal to him, as before nobody was superior to him but
my father.*' — Letters, ii. 118. In his Memoirs, however, he adds to a
similar eulogium a little alloy : — ^' His jolly way of laughing at his own
want of principle revolted the graver sort of politicians. He had infinitely
more wit than any man I ever knew, and it was as ready and quick as it was
constant and unpremeditated. His style was a little brutal ; his courage
not at all so ; hb good humour was inexhaustible ; it was impossible to hate
or to hurt him." — Mem, Geo, IL, i. 151. He was a dear friend of Lord
Hervey and Henry Fox ; as well as of Sir C. H. Williams, whose epitaph
on Winnington is his best and indeed only good serious verses : —
** Near his paternal seat here buried lies
The grave, the gay, the witty, and the wise ;

Form'd

492 LORD HERYET'8 MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

made one in the Admiralty, where Mr. Campbell,"
another of his friends, would of com'se have come in.
The Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Felham solicited the
Treasury for Mr. Clutterbuck ;" and Sir Eobert Walpole,
not caring to decide between/these two, put in neither,
which, in my opinion, was at this time one of the most
impolitic unministerial acts I ever knew him guilty of.
Winnington's pretensions were certainly superior every
way to Clutterbuck's ; he was his senior in the Admiral-
ty, and besides that, was, from his party-knowledge and
application, of infinite use to Sir Robert Walpole in the
House of Commons. Clutterbuck was sensible, be-
loved, and had a good character, but was lazy, indolent,
and mute, and of no use in Parliament but counting
one in a division.

The way that Sir Robert Walpole took to avoid dis-
obliging one of these two men disobliged them both, for
he took his son-in-law. Lord Cholmondeley, into the
Treasury ; and though neither of them could complain
of Lord Cholmondeley's being preferred to them, yet

Form'd for all parts, in all alike he shined ;
Variously great— a genius unconfined —
In converse bright, judicious in debate,
In prirate amiable, in public great," &c.

WiUiams'a Works, ii. 83.
Mr. Winnington was but just fifty when he died, or was killed, as
Walpole says, by the ignorance of Dr. Thompson.

S4 John Campbell of Cawdor, M.P. for Pembrokeshire, successively a
Lord of the Admiralty, 1736, and of the Treasury in 1746. He was grand-
father of the first Lord Cawdor.

>» Thomas Clutterbuck, Esq., had been secretary to Lord Carteret as
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, became a Lord of the Admuralty in May, 1732,
in which office he remained till, in May, 1742, he was made Treasurer of
the Navy, but died shortly after. He married, in 1731, the only sister of
the third Earl of Dysart, who himself married the eldest daughter of Lord
Carteret.

1736. VACANT OFFICES. 493

both of them saw he was put there only to avoid a de-
cision between their claims.

The reason Sir Bobert gave for putting Lord Chol-
mondeley there was, that his Lordship was so uneasy in
the Prince's service, and had so long pressed him to be
removed out of it, that it was impossible for him longer
to withstand that solicitation, especially since it was
upon his account Lord Cholmondeley was so ill used
by the Prince ; nor could he, with any decency to the
Prince, take Lord Cholmondeley out of his service
upon any pretence but that of putting him into a place
of business; for which reason, when the King had
offered to make Lord Cholmondeley a Lord of his
Bedchamber, Lord Cholmondeley had declined it By
this odd measure, therefore, of putting Lord Cholmon-
deley into the Treasury, the Prince was disobliged, by
Lord Cholmondeley quitting his service ; the King was
disobliged, because he had declined the Bedchamber ;
Mr. Winnington and Mr. Clutterbuck were disobliged,
because their hopes of the Treasury were defeated; and
Campbell was disobliged, because, after ten years* ser-
vice, an opportunity of providing for him offered and
was not taken.

Lord Hervey remonstrated to Sir Bobert Walpole
against this step, for all these accumulated reasons;
adding, that Sir Bobert was always feeling the weight
of all the young men in the House of Commons taking
a part against him, and yet on every occasion showed
that they could get nothing by being attached to him.
Sir Bobert said that it was not his fault that there were
not more things in his gift. To which Lord Hervey
answered, that was very true ; but it was a fault, not

494 LORD HBRVBY'S MEMOIRS. Chap. ML

only to his friends but even to himself^ if he did not
make the best disposition he could of those favours that
were in his power ; and added further, that, let him be
ever so able a Minister, it was impossible for him to
alter universal principles in human nature, and the
fundamental inducements of mankind not only to serre
one another but even to serve Heaven itself; tiiat the
strength of all government, like the foundation of all
religions, was rewards and punishments ; and that the
one was as necessary to encourage one's friends and
keep them firm, as the other was to intimidate one's
enemies and keep them quiet " But, Sir," continued
he, " if I may take the liberty to say so, you are at
present breaking through both these rules by showing
the world that your known and almost avowed enemies
may be your enemies with impunity, and enjoy the best
employments in the kingdom ; whilst your friends have
nothing to reward them but that unpopularity which
always attends serving power, without the profit that
should be annexed to it ; and if Mr. Campbell and Mr.
Fox," after serving you seven years for that disagreeaWe
Leahy are to serve you seven more for Bachdf who,
among the youth that has his senses, if he thinks of his
interest (and I believe you have lived too long in the
world and in power to expect people should embark in
any party without thinking of it), will ever list in your
service with such a prospect and such examples before
their eyes ?"

S8 Stephen Fox, afterwards Lord Ilchester ; who seems from Lord Her-
yey's private letters to have beea the nearest and dearest friend he ever had.
The younger brother, Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, was also a veiy
great friend.

I

1736. VACANT OFFICES. 495

Sir Robert said all this was very trae, but that
Lord Hervey knew he had always declared Mr. Camp-
bell and Mr. Fox should be the two first people he
would provide for ; that he thought them not only use-
ful but creditable friends, as their integrity was not
inferior to their understandings, nor their characters to
their fortunes. ** But, my Lord, you see my difficulty :
Campbell could not be brought into the Admiralty
without Winnington or Clutterbuck being removed,
and one of those could not be removed without the
other being lost. I am inclined to Winnington, but
you know I am the only friend (yourself excepted) he
has in the Court, and that both the King and Queen
have great prejudices against him."

" One of these things,** replied Lord Hervey, "is the
consequence of the other: he has no friend in the
palace but you, because he has attached himself to no-
body but you ; and the people who are angry he has
made court only to you are those who have given
the King and Queen those prejudices against him ; so
that I think you in honour and justice, and indeed in
interest (unless you will let people know it is not safe
to attach themselves wholly to you), bound to remove
any ill impressions that may have been given of Win-
nington at Court, since you must know that their being
made so strong has proceeded chiefly from his being so
strongly and undividedly your humble servant." " As
to what you said " (interrupted Sir Robert Walpole)
" about my enemies being such with impunity, I have
told Dodington this very morning that I will no longer
bear his shuffling, fast-and-loose conduct, and will rather
risk the entering into the next Session of Parliament

496 LORD HERYET'S MEMOIRS. Csap. XDL

with a majority only of forty or fifty than go on in this
way; I desired, therefore, we might understand one
another, and he has, with the greatest submission, pro-
mised everything I could require with r^ard to his
future good behaviour. As for the Duke of Dorset^ I
have got the Queen at last to consent to remove him
from his Lieutenancy in Ireland: Lord Scarborough I
design should succeed him, and your friend Mr. Fox,
if he likes it, shall go Secretary ; but though I com-
mission you to propose this to him, it is under the in-
junction of the strictest secrecy, for neither the Duke
of Dorset yet knows he is to quit this employment, nor
Lord Scarborough that he is to have it/'

Sir Robert Walpole, in order to raise the value to
Lord Hervey of what he had cut out for his friend
Mr. Fox, told him the employment of Secretary was
worth 2000Z. a-year, which it was not by near the half.
However, nothing else offering, Lord Hervey advised
Mr. Fox to accept it, and he did so ; but when the offer
of the Lieutenancy was made to Lord Scarborough, to
the great surprise of Sir Robert Walpole, as well as of
the King and Queen, he refused it ; acknowledging, at
the same time, great obligations for the honour they
had done him in- offering it; but saying it was impos-
sible he could expose his character to the censure of the
world so far as to give any handle for a suspicion or
insinuation that he had quitted his employment one year
only in order to get a more profitable one the next

But what was more extraordinary still than Lord
Scarborough's refusal of this great post, was that it
never took air that the offer of it had been made to
him ; and the Duke of Dorset went to Ireland again

1786. KING'S VISIT TO HANOVER. 497

as satisfied with his own security as if he had owed it
to his own strength.

Sir Robert Walpole took a little ill the strong
manner in which Lord Hervey had pressed Mr. Win-
nington and Mr. Campbeirs advancement on this occa-
sion ; and Lord Hervey certainly went much farther
than he would have done had he known, as he did
afterwards, that the measure of putting Lord Chol-
mondeley into the Treasury was at that time unalter-
ably resolved upon.

Winnington's rough behaviour to Sir Robert Wal-
pole on the disappointment did Lord Hervey, who
had appeared so zealous for him, still more hurt, and
himself no good. Mr. Clutterbuck's resentment went
so far that he absented himself entirely from Sir
Robert Walpole ; and Winnington was going on in the
same simple middle way with Mr. Clutterbuck — that
IS, voting in public with Sir Robert, and talking in
private against him — ^when Lord Hervey insisted on
his making the option of either quitting his employ-
ment and being thoroughly disobliged, or keeping it
and being thoroughly reconciled. He advised the last,
and his advice was followed.

This being the third summer since the King's last
journey to Hanover, and this triennial journey one
among the many things which the King continued to
do because he had once done them, his Majesty de-
clared, a little before the Parliament rose, his intention of
visiting, as soon as it should rise, his foreign dominions.
His Ministers in England were one and all extremely
desirous to divert his Majesty from this resolution, but
did not succeed. It is certain it would have been

VOL. I. 2 k

498 LORD HERVEY'S MBMOIRS. Chap. XDL

much for the despatch as well as for the convenience of
foreign negotiations, which were likely to be the chief
business of this summer, that the King should have
remained in England, in order to prevent every paper,
which in that case might be regulated by a short jour-
ney only from Sir Robert Walpole's house at Chelsea
to the King's palace at Kensington, being obliged to
make a voyage or two from England to Hanover before
it could be settled. Neither would it have been a very
agreeable incident for the King of Great Britain, after
a month's residence at Hanover, to be running back
again through Westphalia to England :v^ith seventy
thousatict Prussians at his heels ; and yet, considering
the terms he and the King of Prussia were upon at
present, this might easily have happened, and was
suggested by Sir Robert Walpole to deter his Majesty
from this expedition; but to their remonstrances his
Majesty always answered, "Pooh!" and "Stuff!'* or,
" You think to get the better of me, but you shall not ;"
and, in short, plainly showed that all efforts to divert
him from this expedition would be fruitless.

The English Ministers apprehended, too, that if the
King went into Germany, his German Ministers, being
all of them Imperialists, might make the difficulties of
keeping his Majesty out of the war, in case the propo-
sition for peace did not take place, still more trouble-
some and harder to be surmounted than they had
hitherto found them, which might be of fatal consequence
when the English Ministers, by experience, knew their
influence was barely a match for such difficulties even
in their former degree, and combated on this side of
the water.

1785. MADAME DE WALMODBN. 499

But that which prevented the English Ministers from
succeeding in their attempts to prevent his Majesty's
intended journey, in my opinion, was the Queen, through
whom they chiefly worked, not being heartily desirous
they should succeed — not that her Majesty could not
foresee some inconyeniences in his going, but the
danger of blowing up his warlike disposition, which was
one of the things that alarmed our Ministers the most,
disturbed her the least ; and to compensate the trouble
of transacting all business with him at that distance by
letter, she had the pleasure that resulted to her pride
from the ^clat of the regency, and the convenience and
ease of being mistress of all those hours that were not
employed in writing, to do what she pleased, which was
never her case for two hours together when the King
was in England ; and besides these dgrSmens^ she had
the certainty of being, for six months at least, not only
free from the iatigue of being obliged to entertain him
twenty hours in the twenty-four, but also from the
more irksome office of being set up to receive the quo-
tidian sallies of a temper that, let it be charged by
what hand it would, used always to discharge its hottest
fire, on some pretence or other, upon her.

But there was one trouble arose on the King's going
to Hanover which her Majesty did not at all foresee,
which was his becoming, soon after his arrival, so much
attached to one Madame Walmoden,^ a young married
woman of the first feshion at Hanover, that nobody in
England talked of anything but the declining power

^ Amelia Sophia de Walmoden, created, after Queen Caroline's death,
Countess of Yarmouth. She died in 1765. Lord Hervey alwajrs calls her
either WcdmaudeiX Valmaude, I have everywhere restored the real name.

2k2

500 LORD HERVET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XTSL

of the Queen, and the growing interest of this new
favourite. By what I could perceive of the Queen, I
think her pride was much more hurt on this occasion
than her affections, and that she was much more un-
easy from thinking people imagined her interest de-
clining than from apprehending it was so.

It is certain, too, that, from the very beginning of
this new engagement, the King acquainted the Queen
by letter of every step he took in it — of the growth of
his passion, the progress of his applications, and their
success — of every word as well as every action that
passed — so minute a description of her person, that
had the Queen been a painter she might have drawn
her rival's picture at six hundred miles' distance.** He

29 These strange confidences are also stated by Horace Walpole : —
<* Madame Walmoden was the King's mistress at Hanover daring his latter
journeys, and with the Queen's privity ; for he always made her the eem-
fidante of his amours; which made Mrs. Selwyn (bedchamber-womany
mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity, and pretty,
p. 73) once tell him that he should be the last man with whom she would
have an intrigue, as she knew he would tell the Queen. In his letters
from Hanover he said to her, ' Tou must love the Walmoden, for she loves
me.* *' — RemimscenceSy 96. In Lord Campbeirs Life of L<m^ Chanoellor
King we find another corroboration of these incredible confessions. Ixvrd
King notes that he dined with Sir Robert : — ** On this occasion he let me
into several secrets relating to the King and Queen — ^that the King con-
stantly wrote to her long letters of two or three sheets, being generidly of
all his actions, what he did every day, even to minute things, and par-
ticularly of his amours, what women he admired * * * and that die Qoeen,
to continue him in a disposition to do what she desired, returned as long
letters, and approved even of his amours ; not scrupling to say that she
was but one woman and an old woman, and that he might love more
and younger women ♦ ♦ * by which perfect subserviency to his will, she
efiected whatever she desired, without which it was impossible to keep him
in bounds."— Zt'iw (f the Chancellors, iv. 633. Lord Campbell says he
has put asterisks in lieu of *' expressions imputed to her Meqesty too coarse
to be copied** and he adds a very natural doubt whether the whole of this
strange story was not *' a fiction of Walpole's over his wine to mystify the
Chancellor ;" but the concurrent and still more detailed evidence of Lord
Ilervey unfortunately puts these scandalous transactions beyond all doobt

1786. THE KINa'S CONFIDENCES TO THE QUEEN. 501

added, too, the account of his buying her, and what he
gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser,
and the merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I
think he had no great reason to brag of, when the first
price, according to his report, was only one thousand
ducats — a much greater proof of his economy than his
passion.

But notwithstanding all the Queen's philosophy on
this occasion, when she found the time for the King's
return put off so late in the year that for six weeks to-
gether the orders for the yacht were by every post and
courier in vain expected, she grew extremely uneasy ;
and, by the joy she showed when the orders arrived,
plainly manifested that she had felt more anxiety than
she had suffered to appear whilst they were deferred.

Yet all this while the King, besides his ordinary
letters by the post, never failed sending a courier once
a-week with a letter of sometimes sixtt/ pages, and
never less than forty, filled with an hourly account of
everything he saw, heard, thought, or did, and crammed
with minute trifling circumstances, not only unworthy
of a man to write, but even of a woman to read, most
of which I saw, and almost all of them heard reported
by Sir Robert, to whose perusal few were not com-
mitted, and many passages in them were transmitted to
him by the King's own order, who used to tag several
paragraphs with " Montrez ceci et consultez la-dessus le
gros hommer Among many extraordinary things
and expressions these letters contained, there was one
in which he desired the Queen to contrive, if she could,
that the Prince of Modena, who was to come the latter
end of the year to England, might bring his wile with

Wa L03flD HBBVFTS MEMOIBS. Chap. XDL.

him ;'* and the reason he gave for it was, that he heard
her Highness was pretty free of her person, and that
he had the greatest inclination imaginable to pay his
addresses to a daughter of the late Begent of France,
the Duke of Orleans — ^^un plaidr*' (for he always
wrote in French) " que je suis a^r^ ma chkre Caroline^
V0U8 serez bien aise de me procurer^ quandje vaus dis
comMenje le eouhaite"

Such a request to his wife respecting a woman he
never saw, and during his connection with Madame
Walmoden, speaks much stronger in a bare narrative
of the fact than by any comment or reflectiona ; and
is as incapable of being heightened as difficult to be
credited.

[Durinff the summer Lord Hervey made a visit ta some
friends in the West, and wrote to the Queen the following fcmcifid
account of his tour, which I introduce here to show the terms on
which he was with her Majesty, and as a prelude to some plea-
santriesofthe same class which toe shall see presently.']

To THE Queen.

Thoroughly sensible of all the gracious distinctions and In-
numerable favours with which your Majesty honoured me
when I was alive, I thought it my duty to give your Majesty
some notice of my death. On Saturday the 14th June, abont
five minutes after eleven, I died. Some malicious people per-

«» Francis d'Este, hereditary Prince of Modena, married, in 1720, Char-
lotte Aglai, younger daughter of the Regent Duke of Orleans. The
accounts we read of the morals of the lady's iiimily are almost incredible,
but not more so than the shameful anecdote recorded in the text, of which
not the least wonderful part is the Queen's communicating snch a monatrons
proposal to Lord Hervey—which, without the corroborating evidence of
Lord King and Horace Walpoje as to similar confidences, we should hanily
venture to credit.

1735. LORD HERYET'S LETTER TO THE QUEEN. 508

haps may give out that I died drunk ; for as I departed this
life just as I took leave of your Majesty when you retired out
of your gallery, I cannot deny but that I expired with a drop
in my eye. The next morning my corpse was carried down to
Salisbury, where Bishop Sherlock of that diocese read the
funeral service over me ; from thence the body was carried to
Mr. Fox V® and there privately interred ; it had not rested there
a week, when my poor carcase was taken up again and con-
veyed to lie in state at the &mily seat of Lord Poulet ; my
body was there exhibited to the view of all the country, and,
according to the custom of Italy, in the same dress I wore
when I was alive. My Lord Poulet himself was the under-
taker^ and the obsequies were performed (though far in the
West) with all the pomp and magnificence of the East : ^e bed
on which the body of the defunct was laid was velvet, laced
with gold, adorned with plumes of feathers ; the staircase by
which all those who were admitted to see my body ascended,
was vaulted with lapis*lazuli ; they passed through five lai^
rooms before they came to my mausoleum ; near thirty men
in the same livery were perpetually watching the corpse, and
prayers were read over it regularly every night at nine o'clock.

But whilst my body, Madam, was thus disposed of, my
spuit (as when alive) was still hovering, though invisible, round
your Majesty, anxious for your welfare, and watching to do
you any little services that lay wi^in my power.

On Monday, whilst you walked, my shade still turned on the
side of the sun to guard you from its beams.

On Tuesday morning, at breakfast, I brushed away a fly that
had escaped Teed's'^ observation, and was just going to be the
taster of yotu* chocolate.

On Wednesday in the afternoon I took off the chihiess of
some strawberry-water your Majesty was going to drink, as
you came in hot from walking ; and at night I hunted a bat
out of your bed-chamber, and shut a sash just as you fell
asleep, which your Majesty had a little indiscreetly ordered
Mrs. Purcel '* to leave open.

so At Rcdljiich, in Somersetshire, whence he had visited Lord Poulet at
Hinton. '^ One of the Queen's attendants.

ss The Queen's dresser and ordinary attendant.

504 LORD HER VET'S MEMOIRS. Chap. XIX.

On Thursday, in the drawing-room, I took the forms and
voices of several of my acquaintance, made strange faces, put my-
self into awkward postures, and talked a good deal of nonsense,
whilst your Majesty entertained me very gravely, raccommoded
me very graciously, and laughed at me internally very heartily.

On Friday (being post-day) I proposed to get the best pen
in the other world for your Majesty's use, and slip it invisibly
into your standish, just as Mr. Shaw^ was brinpng it into your
gallery for you to write, and accordingly I went to Vaiture
and desired him to lend me his pen, but when I told him for
whom it was designed, he only laughed at me for a blockhead,
and asked me if I had been at Court for four years to so little
purpose as not to know that your Majesty had a much better
of your own.

On Saturday I went on the shaft of your Majesty's chsuse to
Richmond ; as you walked there I went before you, and with
an invisible wand I brushed the dew and the worms out of
your path all the way, and several times uncrumpled your Ma-
jesty's stocking.

This very day at chapel I did your Majesty some service, by
tearing six leaves out of the parson's sermon, and shortening
his discourse six minutes.

Your Majesty sees how ready I am to boast of the small ser-
vices I am capable of doing you : but little geniuses must
submit to little occupations, and those who wish to do you any
services, if they are not able to do you all they would, must
at least perform all ^ey can ; and if your Majesty thinks,
after this purgatory I have gone through, I deserve my re-
ward, do but pronounce my sentence, and say Je vous ktisse
vivrCj my revival will immediately ensue, and the life of your
presence be again enjoyed by. Madam, &c. — Hervey.

>3 Mr. John Shaw, one of the pages of the back stairs.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

Speech of Lord Hervey in moving the Address in the
House of Lords on the I7th of January^ 1734. —
Seeante,p.2l9>}

Hy Lords,

I AM so nevr to the honour of sitting in this assembly^
that very few occasions could offer in which I should not much
sooner wish to be attentive in order to form my opinion than
forward to deliver it

But as many opportunities have presented themselves to
your Lordships (which you have never failed to improve) of
testifying your affection and duty to his Majesty's person and
Government, your zeal for the service of the State, your
attachment to its interest, and your resolution to protect and
defend all the rights, liberties, and privileges of this wise and
happy Constitution, of which your Lordships are the chief
support and guardians ; as your Lordships have not only at all
times professed these to be your sentiments, but proved they
were the principles that constantly actuate your conduct, I
hope I shall be forgiven if, in order to follow such laudable
examples, an extreme, and what on every other occasion I
should call an improper, eagerness now prompts me to make
the earliest declarations to your Lordships that, in these par-
ticulars at least, how deficient soever I am ready to confess
myself in every other, I will never prove unworthy of being

i I think the two speeches here given will refute the character of
^^ florid impotence " given to Lord Hervey's speeches by Pope, and repeated
by Smollett The truth is, his speeches were by no means florid, and are
as well reasoned as any others of the period that have reached us.

50tf APPBNDDL — L

admitted into this great society of which I have now the
honour to he a member.

What encourages me still farther to hope for your Lord-
ships' indulgence on this occasion is, that considering the pre-
sent situation of England, either with regard to its foreign or
domestic interest, considering what has just now been delivered
from the Throne, and considering the characters of those to
whom I am speaking, it is impossible for me not to imagine
that every one of your Lordships is already desirous to pro-
mote what I shall only have the good fortune to be the first in
proposing, and consequently whilst I am speaking my own
thoughts I cannot help flattering myself that I am only antici-
pating and delivering the thoughts of your Lordships.

And as general acknowledgments to his Majesty for the
regard he has on all occasions shown for the wel&re of his
subjects and the interests of these realms as expressing a gra-
titude for his past and a reliance on his future care, and a
thorough satisfaction in his wise and prosperous government —
as this is all I shall take the liberty to propose to your Lord-
ships, many words, I think, cannot be necessary ; a very few
reflections on the series of policy pursued from the commence-
ment of his Majesty's reign to this hour, a very short deduction
of known facts, will surely suffice to prove the propriety of
such a proposal at this time and the reasonableness of hoping
for your Lordships' concurrence in it.

That peace is the essence of prosperity to a trading nation
I believe is a position will no more be denied me than that the
whole tenor of his Majesty's conduct since he first mounted the
throne has demonstrated his desire, on one continued uniform
plan, to procure that invaluable blessing to his people, and
establish it on as lasting a foundation as human prudence can
form, or the natural vicissitude and instability of human affairs
subject to so many and such unforeseen accidents will admit.

The very delicate and unsettled situation in which his
Majesty found the affairs of Europe at his first accession to
the Crown ; the unwearied application and unalterable steadi-
ness with which he has wrought in order to fix them on a
firmer foot ; the success that did attend those endeavours and
does still attend them with regard to the particular tranquillity

LORD HERVBY'S SPEECH IN MOVING THE ADDRESS. 501

and prosperity of his own dominions, are considerations which,
if didy weighed, will, I am convinced, not only entitle him to
the thanks of all those of whose interests he has the care and
of whose security he is the guardian, but must likewise pro-
cure him at least the tacit applause and aiqurobation of all
mankind.

As to the first of these considerations, I need not trouble
your Lordships with particularly describing the very intricate,
complicated, and entangled disposition of the affidrs of all the
great powers of Eurq)e at the period I have just now men*
tioned. The various views and conflicting pretensions, the
jarring demands and contradictory claims, of the difierent
princes concerned in the disputes at that time depending,
sufficiently set forth the difficulty of the part his Majesty had
then to act Nor were the immediate and particular interests
of England unaffected. At this time there was a union sub-
sisting between two great confederated powers, a imiaa
grounded on reciprocal advantages proposed to «ach otiier,
which were to be gained by mutual aids stipidated, and assist-
ance promised, not only in opposition to tiie interests of the
British nation, but in manifest invasion of her absolute and
established rights ; I mean, my Lords, by one of these powers
bringing again into dispute the possessions of England abroad
(confirmed to us by so many treaties), whilst the other endea-
voured to lessen the advantages of our trade by interfering in
one of the most valuable and beneficial branches of it

However, by the steady conduct, the firmness, and pru-
dence of his Majesty, peremptory as these powers wore in their
demands, and stiff in muntaining what they had undertaken,
means were found to baffle these attacks and defeat these pre-
tensions ; the rights and possessions of England abroad were
again confirmed by a new treaty and agreements with one of
these powers, the rival of our trade was no longer supported
by the other, and the full exercise of every other branch of
our commerce was again restored and amply enjoyed.

Nor did his Majesty's labours for the service of mankind
end there ; he now took into his thoughts the general peace of
Europe^ though he made it a second consideration to that of
the particular interest of his own subjects, and postponed all

508 APPENDIX. — I.

other views till that was accomplished. By his wise mediatioii
and friendly interposition the tranquillity of Europe was
restored ; points that had been disputed during many years of
unsuccessful negotiation were, by his skill, happily adjusted
and settled ; points that had so long kept all Europe in that
uneasy situation of impending rupture, that amphibious state
of war and peace, by which every country concerned was
plunged in all the expenses of the one, yet detained in all
the inaction of the other. However^ such was the good for-
tune of his Majesty, that to this long-disturbed prospect suc-
ceeded an entire calm : Spain was satisfied, the Emperor was
made easy, Holland consented, and France was quiet

But as the best concerted schemes are slill imperfect, and
the most permanent liable to change, so, by accidents impos-
sible to be foreseen, and consequences of those accidents as
impossible, perhaps, to be prevented, though they had been
foreseen, new troubles began, new clouds arose, and a new
storm broke out upon the Continent The choice of a suc-
cessor to the deceased King of Poland employed the attention
of all the great powers of Europe — an event about which it was
natural to imagine the princes who at present dispute upon it
would never have so fiur concerned themselves as to risk what
they now stake and expose.

But it happened among them, as it often happens among
people of inferior rank, that what was a trifle in the be^nning
became in the conclusion an essential: they engaged them-
selves unwarily by little and little till they found they were
advanced too far to recede ; what was not a point of interest
at first became a point of honour at last, and they perceived
themselves too late in that situation into which (if they had
foreseen the inconveniences) they never would have brought
themselves by the original embarking.

However, I cannot but observe to your Lordships that,
whilst most countries in Europe are exposed to the calamities
of war, and groan under its weight — whilst every country is
sensible of the oppressive expenses of it — ^this island, still happy
in her situation, nor less happy in her guardian and protector,
by the caution, prudence, and foresight of his Majesty in the
engagements by which he has bound himself, has still her

LORD HERVETS SPEECH IN MOVING THE ADDRESS. 509

choice of peace or war, what party she will espouse^ if any,
whom she will assist, and whom she will withstand.

Her friendship by every State courted and coveted; her
enmity by every Court dreaded and apprehended ; her com-
merce, the source of her prosperity, extended to all parts of
the known world, successful and unmolested ; her ships laden
with riches, every sea free to their passage and open to their
reception.

And as this scene of happiness, the being prosperous at
home and considerable abroad, as every blessing we can boast
of, in my opinion, proceeds from the harmony subsisting be-
tween his Majesty and his Parliament, so I am persuaded it is
wholly unnecessary for me to recommend to your Lordships
the preservation of that harmony, as your own thoughts will
naturally suggest to you that the best and surest method to
continue these blessings and advantages to the state is to con-
tinue the means by which they have been procured.

And as the best security for the fidelity of alliances is to
make it as much their interest by whom national faith is
plighted to have it preserved as theirs to whom it is given —
as the best security against any perfidious attacks upon our
rights or invasions of our tranquillity is to show those who
may meditate any such design how unsuccessful it is like to
prove, and that the assailant would be the sufierer, and, in few
words, my Lords, that we may depend as much on the fear
as the faith of all our neighbours, I doubt not but your Lord-
ships will think it expedient to put the nation in such a posture
of defence as shall, in these general troubles and commotions,
preserve the honour and dignity of the Crown from any insult,
the safety of the people from any danger, and the peace of the
kingdom fit>m any at least successful attempts to molest it.
Sudi steps are, I think, what prudence, interest, justice, and
wisdom now require from your Lordships ; such steps are con-
sequently consistent with yourselves; and as I cannot help
thinking that the proceedings of your Lordships have been such
that the best rule for your future behaviour is the example of
your past condud:, so I shall take the liberty to make a motion
to your Lordships drawn as near as I could copy it upon that
plan.

510 APPENDIX. — ^n.

No. n.

Speech of Lord Hervey on the Petition of the Scotch
Lordsj on the 2lst of Febrvaryy 1735 — ante^p. 480.

Mt Lorm,

Though the motion I intend to make would, I
think, be sufficiently warranted by the resolution your Lord-
ships have just now come to, as it is^ in my opinion, the natural
and unavoidable consequence of that resolution ; yet, as I al-
ways desire to justify in the most ample manner any proposal
I ever take the liberty to make to your Lordships, so, before I
give my opinion on the step your Lordships ought next to take,
I shall beg your indulgence whilst in the shortest and clearest
manner I am able I just state the progressive steps of this
whole affidr from its first rise to tbe present time, since it is
on that very extraordinary gradation, and the collected and
compared circumstances of so uncommon a proceeding, that I
found that motion which I shall afterward have the honour to
make.

. 1 need not be very particular in describing the almost uni-
versal flame raised in the nation at the time when the election
of the sixteen peers now sitting with your Lordships was made ;
the bare naming of the remarkable era will bring back to the
memory of every Lord who now hears me the stories that were
then in the mouths of most people, and in the ears of aU, of die
enormous corruption, the flagrant illegality, and even of the un-
warrantable violences made use of in this transaction.

What effect the propagating these reports over the whole
island produced in the minds of the people, your Lordships are
equally well apprised of; for, notwithstanding the majority for
the sixteen Lords now sitting in this House was so great that,
taking out of the sixteen each list who voted for themselves,

LOBD HBRVBY'S SPSBCH ON THE SCOTCH PETITION. 511

the proportion, at a medium, between the two lists appeared to
be as 42 to 9> yet it was currently reported, and by many be-
lieved, that the return was made in fiiYOur of the sixteen now
sitting by the weight of power, and contrary to all the right of
a free election.

In order to spread, strengthen, and confirm this opinion,
pamphlets of the Protests made at the Scotch election were
written and dispersed over the whole United Kingdoms to assert
this fact, and to declare the return unduly made: I mean not
by these pamphlets the anonymous scandal of sixpenny books,
or the yet cheaper calumny of weekly or daily journals ; but
pamphlets of &r superior authority, with great and noble names
affixed to them, and not in the manner that many great and
noble names are used — covertly described, or hinted at by ini-
tial letters, but written at length, and consequently in such
manner as those who made use of them, had they not been
authorised, would have been punished for so doing, or at least
disavowed.

In these pamphlets the election for the sixteen returned was
declared void and null, and a return claimed for the other list ;
a declaration was made, equally attested^ that several Lords
had voted for these sixteen unduly returned who had no right
to vote, and that several others who had a right to vote were
induced, by a corrupt influence, to make use of that right in
&vour of the Lords now sitting. To these assertions were
added that of a capacity of proving them at a proper time and
in a proper place : as everybody understood that proper time to
be the meeting of the Parliament, and that proper place the great
Assembly to which I am now speaking, the whole world was im-
patient till that interval between the election and the meeting
of the Parliament was expired, and big with expectation to
have these illegal and unjust practices set forth before the pro-
per judges, tiiat the practisers of them mi^t be punished and
ti)e injured be redressed.

And as there could be but two reasons for believing this re-
turn had been made unduly — the one the notoriety of the facts,
the other the concluding it from the unfitness of those returned
to enjoy the honour of representing the Peerage of Scotland ;
and as no one could think the last, so every one concluded it

512 APPENDIX. — ^n.

must be the first : and since I have mentioned this circmnstaiioe»
I must beg leave, in justice to the sixteen Lords who are sitting
here, to ask, unless undue influence manifestly had appeared
and could be proved, why it should be supposed to have been
necessary, to procure a choice of representatives for the Peerage
of Scotland which the whole world must own to be so properly
made ? If birth, if rank, if ancient families, if property, if ho-
nour, lUntegrityy if blameless and unexceptionable characters can
give man a claim to the honour of representing the Peerage of
Scotland, where can sixteen more proper for that honour be
found ? I will not enter into the copious theme of the parti-
cular merits of each of these Lords, because what is so well
known to your Lordships is unnecessary to be repeated, and
because encomiums of that kind, I am sensible, must be dis-
agreeable to those Lords themselves, as such praise is always
most uneasy to the ears of those by whom it is most de-
served.

To return, then, to what happened at the meeting of tbe Par-
liament, when all mankind expected these tales that had been cir-
culated through the kingdom should be brought to some point ;
when it was expected that general assertions would be reduced to
particular facts, that general invectives would be thrown into par-
ticular accusations, and general complaints brought home to par-
ticular delinquents — ^how were these expectations of mankind
answered ? The Parliament had been sitting near a month befiire
any complaint at all was brought ; and at last, when a complaint
was made that seemed to be rather extorted by the expectations
of the public than founded on just cause of complaint — when a
petition was presented by the complainants, how was that peti-
tion signed, and what did it contain ? It was signed only by six
Lords of all those who had before thought themselves ag-
grieved ; no direct proof, I own, that the rest had, on delibera-
tion and better information, changed their opinion; but no
very unnatural cause, sure, to believe that they had done so ?
for if these six Lords, thinking themselves duly elected, com-
plain as candidates of a return made in their wrong, why are
the names of the other ten, who are in the same situation, not
added to these ? If the petitioners complain of wrong done
them as electors^ why are not the names of nineteen more in the

LORD HERVEY'S SPEECH ON THE SCOTCH PETITION. 613

same situation added to these ? And can it be thought any
unfair interpretation, any forced construction of this circum-
stance, to say it ought to be presumed that those who would
have been partakers in the injury sufiered, if there had been
any, by not joining in the complaint on maturer deliberation,
are convinced, notwithstanding their first thoughts, that there
has no injury been done, and that there is no ground for com-
plaint ?

So much I could not help saying with regard to the man-
ner of signing this petition. As to the matter contained in it,
it is so far from reducing generals to particulars, it comes so
far short of the substance of former complaints^ and is con-
ceiyed in such loose, indeterminate, ambiguous terms, that no
one particular crime or criminal is mentioned in the complaint ;
yet at the same time such extensire terms of complaint used
in this petition, that I think there is no species of crime that
may not be covertly comprehended in it.

Notwithstanding, therefore, the rebuhe I met with^ in the first
debate on this petition for calling this petition an unintelligible
one, I shall persist in the expression, and think myself warranted
in doing so by the best aulliority I can have, which is the au-
thority of this House ; for if the House thought this petition
wanted explanation, it is evident it was unintelligible to them
as well as to me ; nay, it was unintelligible even in the most
material point, which was the right of the sixteen Lords re-
turned to their seats in this House. An explanation, there*
fore, of this point was ordered by the House to be made by the
petitioners. And here I must make use of another word for-
merly objected to me, by calling this permission of explaining
allowed to the petitioners an indulgence towards them ; since,
without the most particular regard to the rank and merit of the
noble persons who signed this petition, and a desire to come to
the bottom of reports that had made so much noise in this
island, I presume your Lordships would not in common cases
think yourselves obliged to be counsel to petitioners at your
bar to make that intelligible at last which all petitioners ought
to make so at first, or to reduce that to a practicable form which,

> From my Lord Gower and Lord Abington. — NUe by Lord Bervejf,
VOL. I. 2 L

514 APPENDIX. — ^n.

without your Lordships' assistance, was absolutely incapable of
being proceeded upon at all ; and for these reasons I called,
and continue to call, this petition, as originally presented, not
only a petition of an extraordinary and unintelligible nature,
but one to which your Lordships have shown extraordinary
marks of indulgence.

And notwithstanding former declarations made by those who
had signed this petition, that the election for the sixteen re-
turned Peers was null and. void, the first explanation made by
the petitioners upon your Lordships' order was, — that they did
not 80 much as contest the right of the sixteen^ or any one of
them, nor mean in any way to controvert their seats in this
House.

This explanation naturally and necessarily drew on an-
other ; for as this explanation only discharged the petition of
one part of its ambiguity, your Lordships were obliged to re-
quire a further explanation of what facts were complained of,
and by whom those fiicts were committed — ^an order which I
beg leave to say was so far from being a hardship on the peti-
tioners, tiiat it is a direct compliance with part of the prayer
of their petition ; for as the Noble Lords, your petitioners, do
say, after general complaints made, that they are able to lay
instances and proofs before your Lordships of these general
complaints in the manner you shall be pleased to direct, what
is your order but a compliance with their request, and desiring
that to be done which they affirm they are able and willing
to do?

Nor can I help thinking that even this order was a second
mark of your Lordships' indulgence^ notwithstanding tiie ofienoe
taken at my making use of tiiat word ; for, had a petition of
the like nature been presented to the House of Commons (the
only case that can justiy be compared to this) — ^had a petition,
I say, from any electors been presented there, declaring that
such petition did not mean to dispute the seat of the sitting
Member, it is indisputable that the House of Commons would
immediately have rejected it. Would the House of Commons
(the right of the sitting Member uncontested) ever have admitted
any number of the electors to come and give a narrcEtive only
of what had passed at the election ? Would the House of

LORD HERVEY'S SPEECH ON THE SCOTCH PETITION. 515

CommoDS admit any person or number of persons to come and
recount at their bar particular circumstances of transactions at
an election that were declared not in any manner to affect the
seat of any of their Members ? Would the House of Commons
give any attention to petitioners who only came and said in ge-
neral terms — We have been informed that some things have
been done by some persons somewhere, which, if examined
into, we believe might be of use to the House to know ; though
what has been done, where, or by whom, we are unable to inform
you ? Does anybody imagine that in the House of Commons
any further notice would be taken of such a petition than to
reject it? or will anybody say that, if the Commons were to
treat petitions of this sort in any other manner — that, consider-
ing the number of elections tiiat go to the constituting their
body, their whole seven years must not be entirely taken up in
hearing them, if any regard at all was paid to the purport of
them?

The second order, therefore, which your Lordships gave to
your petitioners, I do say was a further indulgence, as well in
the substance of it as in (the Lords' petitioners written to by
the Lord Chancellor, by order of the House) the manner by
which both this and the former order were conveyed ; a manner
denoting such particular regard for the Noble Lords, your pe-
titioners, that no example throughout all your journals can be
found of a compliment of the like nature.

I shall not here enter into any vindication of this your Lord-
ships' second order directing the petitioners to specify the facts
complained of under the general terms of undue methods and
illegal practices^ and the names of the persons by whom such
undue methods and illegal practices were used ; the equity of
that order, from all the principles of natural justice, and f^om
the customs of all courts of judicature in all countries and all
ages, to avoid hearing any criminal prosecution ex parte^ was
sufficiently demonstrated in the long debate that preceded the
making of that order ; I shall therefore now consider only in
what situation the noncompliance with that order has put your
Lordships, and cursorily take notice of the answer made to that
order.

A noble Lord (Lord Anglesey) has been pleased to say that

2l2

516 APPENDIX — ^n.

it was not in the power of the petitioners to comply with this
order ; but I beg leave to observe, that in so saying the Noble
Lord alleges that for the petitioners which they have not in
their answer alleged for themselves. The petitioners do not
say that they are nnder an inability to comply with your Lord-
ships' order, but they say they cannot comply with it
unless they will submit to be accusers, which they never de-
signed to be : this answer, therefore, evidently implies that, if
they would submit to be accusers, they could comply with your
order ; and indeed, my Lords, the nice distinction made by the
petitioners between informers and accusers is a distinction which
I know but one way to solve ; and that is this, — if the informa-
tion they intend to give your Lordships be an information of
no criminal fact, it may certainly be an information without
being an accusation ; but then it will, I presume, be thought
no very material information, and consequently not worth em-
ploying much of your Lordships* time : but if the information
be consistent with every other part of their proceedings and
declarations, either at the time of the election or since, it mast
not only be an accusation, but an accusation of the s^ongest
nature. And though another Noble Lord (Lord Chesterfield)
was pleased to say the petitioners never designed to name per-
sons, and were not able to say what persons were concerned in
the transactions they complain of, I must beg leave to answer,
that, though in some papers I have already mentioned (the
Scotch Lords' Protest), they have not actually named persons,
yet they have so described persons that, if they cannot be jus-
tified in naming them when ordered by your Lordships, I am
sure they are much less to be justified in having voluntarily so
described them that every man in England knows who they
mean, whilst the petitioners themselves are conscious they
cannot make out what is there laid to the charge of those
persons.

Another Noble Lord (Lord Bathurst) says the petitioners
only desire your Lordships to go into an inquiry, and argues
upon the reasonableness of your going into that inquiry with-
out insisting on a specification of facts and persons^ from these
two examples : — Suppose (says he) a man comes to a justice of
the peace and teUs him, Here has been a murder committed; a

LORD HERVEY'S SPEECH ON THE SCOTCH PETITION. 617

ayrp^e lies Ueeding and butchered in the street » and toe desire your
warrant to search for the murderer. Would the justice of peace
say. No, I will not give my ufarrant till you name the man you
would search for f To this sapposition of the Noble Lord's I
answer — No. Certunly the justice of the peace would not
delay au inquiry ; but in this case the fact, at least, is evident ;
and there is that wide difference between the supposed case
and the present case, that in the one there is no doubt of the
murder having been committed, whilst in the other there is no
more certauity of the murder than there is of the murderer.

The other example the Noble Lord brought was the inquiry
your Lordships made two years ago into the South Sea afSsiir ;
to which I cannot help saying that I have often heard that all
parallels limp a little ; but this parallel, my Lords, has not one
leg to go upon ; for in the South Sea afiair both facts and per-
sons were named : the fact was the embezzling or misapplying
the public money, the persons were those who had embezzled
or misapplied it ; and those persons who had done so (if it
were done) could only be the Directors of the South Sea Com-
pany, who were immediately, in the first step of this proceeding,
acquainted with the charges, and ordered to prepare their
defence.

These examples, therefore, though brought as parallels to
the present case, I think, on examination, plainly appear to be
no parallels at all. But this Noble Lord, and another (Lord
Bathurst and Lord Anglesey) who spoke just after him in the de-
bate on the last question (which is so blended with the present
question that it is impossible to separate them), did desire
your Lordships would consider yourselves in the double capa-
city of legislators and judges, and that it was as much the
business of this House to provide against wrongs thitt may be
committed, as to punish wrongs that have been committed. I
join with those Lords, and admit that your Lordships may act
either in a legislative or a judicial capacity ; but I am Su* from
thinking that in these two capacities your manner of proceeding
ought not to be extremely different. When your Lordships
act as legislators, you will, as all legislators ought to do,
consider the depravity of mankind — ^the iniquity of mankind by
their propensity to commit wrong ; and your Lordships in that

518 APPENDIX. — ^n.

case will act in such a maimer as to obyiate, by salutary and
preyentive laws, the evils that may be apprehended to flow
from those qualities in mankind, if unrestrained and unintimi-
dated. But though in your legislative capadty you are to con-
clude all mankind, considered in gross, bad and prone to evil,
yet, in your judicial capacity, I beg leave to say you are to
conclude just the reverse. When you come in that capadty to
sit upon particulars, you are to conclude every man good till
he is proved to be bad, and are to take it for granted he
has done right till it is manifested that he has done wrong ; but
to what purpose are your Lordships to make that conclusion if
you will proceed in such a manner to try such persons, that,
let their innocence be ever so clear, they can have no power to
show that innocence at the time it is called in question? and
how can they have that power if the prosecution is heard ex
parte "f

I know it will be answered that a time will be given to the
accused to make their defence ; but to apply that answer to the
present case, — ^if the petitioners, who have had this prosecution
in view these seven or eight months, still want a month longer
to prepare their evidence, how much time after that may be
necessary for the persons accused to prepare proper evidence
for their defence ? My Lords, there must such a singularity
attend this manner of proceeding, that the more innocent those
persons are who are accused, the more difficult it will be for
them to make their defence ; for those who were conscious of
having done wrong might, by the suggestions of their own con-
sciences, have some light to direct them what path they ought
to take for their defence, whereas those who are conscious of
no wrong committed would be entirely in the dark.

What, then, would be the state of those persons who in the
course of this manner of proceeding should stand charged with
any criminal practice ? Their accusers would be heard ex parte
at your Lordships* bar ; witnesses produced whose characters,
as well as the matter of their evidence, might perhaps be ob-
jected to ^f there was an opportunity) by those they charge : a
calumniating history might be plausibly told ; and this history,
under an impossibility during a long interval of being refuted,
would be circulated through the whole kingdom ; and though

LORD HERYEY'S SPEECH ON THE SCOTCH PETITION. 519

hereafter perhaps no assertion in this charge would be better
supported when it came to be examined than the assertion
made in Scotland of the election for the sixteen being void,
yet to everybody in the'^interim those assertions would be told :
by the credulous they would be believed ; by the malignant
they would be improved ; by the discontented they would be
attested ; and by the clamorous they would be trumpeted and
inculcated through the whole kingdom ; whilst the light the
House of Lords would then stand in must be, abetting, by the
in-equity of their proceedings, the fisLctious clamours of those
whom they ought rather to censure and punish.

Nay, I will go still further : perhaps even this House itself
might partake of this dangerous taint ; for though your Lord-
ships' justice and candour would prevent your doing any cor-
porate act, or giving any corporate opinion, on a cause heard in
this manner ex parie^ yet who can answer for the involuntary
conviction of his own private opinion, or say that, after hear-
ing one side, making a formal accusation supported by evi-
dence (which always bears some appearance of proof), that he
will or can suspend his belief till he hears what can be said on
the other? and how many plausible falsehoods does everybody
every day hear advanced, to which, till the answer is heard, it
is imagined there can be none I

Upon the whole, my Lords, as your Lordships from the ori-
ginal rise of this complaint to the present hour have seen this
complaint on every explanation grow weaker and weaker ; that
these representations of monstrous enormities and injustices
committed at the Scotch election, like stories of witches and
ghosts, though eagerly and generally received by the vulgar
at first, have lost their credit the nearer they have been traced
and the more nicely they have been examined and sifted ; as
the petition is so much weaker than the first general assertions,
and every explanation of the petition so much weaker than the
petition itself ; as your Lordships have endeavoured to throw
what was presented impracticable into a practicable form ; as you
gave an order for that purpose, and have just come to a reso-
lution that that order has been disobeyed ; I think the single
question remaining for your Lordships to consider isj whether
you will adhere to your own order or recede from it — whether

520 APPENDIX. — ^n.

you will direct your petitioners in what manner they Bball speak,
or whether they shall dictate to your Lordships in what maimer
you shall hear : and as your Lordships, after Uiis refusal to
obey your order, cannot possibly, without receding from it,
proceed upon this petition ; and as you cannot recede from
that order, so deliberately and equitably made, either consist-
ently with your honour or your justice, my humble motioD to
your Lordships is, That the petition be dismissed.

\It is stated in p, 483 thut Lord Herveys speech on
the number of the forces^ 1735, would be given in ik
Appendix ; but I find it so long, and the topics so obso-
letey that I think the reader will be satisfied with the two
specimens of his Lordship* s parliamentary oratory above
given. I must add, Iiowever, that this other qmchisa
grave and statesmanlike argument^ and as urdike tk
character that Pope and Smollett give of Lord Hervetfs
peaking as it is possible to conceive.']

END OF VOL. I.

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